T 47 
.P29 
1830 
Copy 1 








f/ 



) 




Qass- 
Book. 



e^,,/^ 



»..>> 



? 



THE 



ARTS OF LIFE, 



DESCRIBED IN A 



<Set:iei5 of %ttUvn; 



1. PROVIDING FOOD.— 2. PROVIDING CLOTH- 
ING.— 3. PROVIDING SHELTER. 



INSTRUCTION OF YOUNG PERSONS. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF EVENINGS AT HOME. ^'''ci2>aWi) 



FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 



So S TON: 

CARTER & HENDEE, AND WAITT & DOW. 

18 3 0. 



-17 



Waitt & Dow's Print^ 
No. 362 Washington-Street, Boston 

Exchange 
Brown Umverslty UWUiry 

APR 1 9 1940 



S"^*^' 






CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Ijvtroduction, 9 

THE ARTS RELATIVE TO FOOD. 

The cause of hunger explained, - - . „ 13 

Taste, , - - - - 14 

Divisions of food, --'--__ 15 

Vegetable food, Ig 

Grain, yi 18 

Podded Vegetables, 19 

Chesnuts and Acorns, 20 

Bread Fruit, 20 

Roots, &c, - - - - ^ . . 21 22 

l^g^' 22 

^)^^^ 2^ 

Wines, 26 

Spirituous Liquors, &c, - - , . . 27 

Oily Vegetables, ------- 28 

Cocoa, __ 28 

Chocolate, ""------29 

Gums, &c, _ _ 2Q Q, 

AGRICULTURE. 32 

Gardening, 04 

Ploughing, &c, - - . . .'.".■ 35 

Fencing, -------- 35 

^^^^' 36 

Manures, q^t .<-i 

Clearing Land, - - . . ."."_' 43 ^ 

Cultivation of Land, - - - . aa 

Wheat, ' ' Vk 

Rye-Barley, - . - . . ' . " _ f^ 

Oats, ^^ 

Beans, Peas, &c, - _ |g 

Potatoes, "49 

^'o^^.--' ^l' - " . 51, 52 

Turnips, &c, ^^^ 



8 CONTENTS. 



Grass, 54 

Hay, 55 

Importance of fresh vegetables for Sailors - - 59 

Animal food — means of procuring it, - - - 61 — 64 

Maskito Indians — their dexterity with the harpoon, - 65 

Story of a Maskito Indian, ----- 66 

Shepherd, or pastoral life, 67 — 69 

Milk, 69 

Cream — Butter, 70 

Cheese, -.. 71 

Difference in animal food, - - - - - 72, 73 

Preparation of food, 75 

Mills, 75,76 

Cooking, 77—85 

MANUFACTURING. 

Clothing — materials used by different nations, - - 86—83 

Flax, its use, mode of manufacture, - - - 89,90 

Looms — weaving, &c, 91, 62 

Linen fabrics, - 92, 93 

Hemp, its use, - - 94, 95 

Cotton — how cultivated, 96, 97 

" — how manufactured, 97, 98 

Animal Clothing, 102—104 

Felting, mode of 105,106 

Woollen Manufacture, &c, .... 107—113 

Silk — account of the Silkworm, - - - . 115 — 118 

Silk— manufacture of, 117—121 

« —from a shell fish, ----- 122 

Leather, manufacture of, 123 — 130 

ARCHITECTURE. 

Providing Shelter, 131—140 

Building, different modes of— materials of, &c. - 141 — 157 



THE 

ARTS OF LIFE. 



LETTER I. 

Introductory. 

My Dear Boy: — Though you are now a 
stout active fellow, and can work in your gar- 
den, and do a variety of things besides playing, 
yet I think you must have some recollection of 
the time when you were a helpless little in- 
fant, fit for nothing but to be fed and dressed 
by your nurse. You must probably have ob- 
served, too, that the very young animals of 
other kinds, are for the most part, unable to 
shift for themselves, and would soon perish 
without the care of their parents. Puppies 
and kittens, you know, are blind when they 
come into the world, and their limbs are so 
weak that they can but just crawl about. Un- 
fledged birds are only fit to lie in the nest, and 
open their mouths when the old ones bring 
2 



10 

them food. But all these animals, when 
grown to a tolerable size, are able to get their 
livmg m the way that nature intended for them ; 
and no one ever knew them die of hunger or 
cold for want of sufficient skill to procure them- 
selves provision or shelter where they were to 
be had. 

But it is not so with Man. He not only 
comes into the world the most feeble and na- 
ked of all the young creatures, but, after he 
has acquired the proper use of his limbs and 
senses, he is very unequal to the task of provid- 
ing himself with necessaries, unless taught by 
those who have already enjoyed the benefit of 
experience. And even, if he can make a shift 
to keep himself alive, it is often several gener- 
ations before he finds out what can best contri- 
bute to his comfort and convenience. In manv 
climates there are no fruits or other vegetable 
products growing wild, which will serve him 
for wholesome food, at least without some pre- 
paration. He can seldom overtake quadrupeds 
or birds, or catch fish, by his mere bodily pow- 
ers, unaided by some contrivance. He never 
acquires from nature, as all other creatures do, 
a covering for his body, sufficient to protect him 



11 



from the impression of cold and heat ; and 
caves and woods afford him but an imperfect 
shelter against the inclemencies of the season. 
The use of fire which is in many ways so ne- 
cessary to him, is not taught him by instinct, 
but must have been learned by practice and ob- 
servation. For every thing valuable, therefore, 
man is indebted to art ; and the first use of his 
reason is to suggest to him such arts as are 
most essential to his welfare. 

It is these arts that I mean to make the sub- 
ject of a series of Letters to you. For although 
in the state of society in which we live, persons 
of the superior ranks are seldom called upon to 
exercise the common arts of life themselves, 
yet I consider it as unworthy of a man so far 
to rely upon the exertions of others, as to sit 
down contented with the utter inability of sub- 
sisting himself a single day without help. Many 
are the instances of travellers by sea and land 
being thrown into situations in which they 
must provide for themselves, or perish. In such 
cases, how precious to them Avould be a little 
knowledge of those arts, which they may per- 
haps have disdained as beneath their notice ! 
What would a mere scholar, or fine gentleman 



12 



have done in the place of Alexander Selkirk^ 
when left alone in the island of Juan Fernan- 
dez ? In the times of antiquity, the inventors 
or importers of useful arts have been treated 
with divine honors ; and, indeed, what greater 
human benefactor can be conceived, than one 
who, coming among a savage people, scarcely 
able to subsist in want and wretchedness, 
should teach them the means of acquiring com- 
fort and plenty ? 

The arts of life may be divided into those : 
first, absolutely necessary for its preservation ; 
secondly, conducive to comfort and conven- 
ience ; thirdly, ministering to luxury or pleas- 
ure. It is the first two to which I shall con- 
fine myself in these Letters : and, as it is not 
possible to draw any exact limits betVv'een them, 
I shall not attempt to make the separation ; 
but at the same time shall consider the means 
both of being and of well-being. A more use- 
ful order to follow, will be that of the particu- 
lar purpose of these arts ; such as the providing 
of food, clothing, lodging, and the like. My 
next Letter will make a beginning of these 
topics ; meanwhile, my young friend, fare- 
well. 



13 



LETTER II. 

On the arts relative to Food. 

As I suppose, my dear, you are impatient to 
be taught how you might live by yourself j I lose 
no time in making a commencement of my pro- 
posed instructions. I begin with Food, as the 
article which may justly claim a precedence 
over others, since it is the first thing supplied 
by nature herself to the newborn animal, and 
satisfies the most urgent of his wants. 

I believe I need say little to a schoolboy on 
the importance of a plentiful supply of food. 
It may, however, be of advantage to you to be 
told, that the proper use of food to the animal 
frame is to make up for that waste of solid and 
fluid parts, which constantly goes on as long as 
life endures ; and that the desire for food is 
owing to an uneasy sensation in the stomach, 
produced by the gnawing or corroding proper- 
lies of a liquor formed there ; which, for Want 
of other matter to act upon, preys upon the 
empty stomach itself. This is fair, honest 

2t 



14 

hunger ; a painful feeling, but serving the use- 
ful purpose of exciting us to the procuring of a 
regular supply of what is necessary to life. 
You are not to suppose, however, that going 
without a meal or two will do you any lasting 
harm. The stomach gives early warning of 
its wants, but it may be taught patience ; and 
in many employments and modes of life the 
intervals of abstinence must frequently be 
long. vSome of the savage hunter-tribes of- 
ten undergo fasting for days together, in pur- 
suit of their prey. In such cases it is said, 
that they blunt the sense of hunger by squee- 
zing the stomach between two boards bound 
tightly together ; but this is one of the arts of 
life^ which I hope you will have no occasion to 
practice. It it a proof of the benevolence of 
our Creator, that the necessary action of taking 
food should not only free us from a pain, but 
should be a source of pleasure. This is pro- 
duced by means of the sense of taste^ the prin- 
cipal seat of which is the palate, or roof of the 
mouth ; and it may in general be taken for a 
rule, that the same things, which are agreeable 
to the taste are proper articles of food. But 
this maxim is to be understood with modera- 



15 



tion, for things are not wholesome in propor- 
tion to the pleasure they give. There is be- 
sides, danger, lest by indulging too much the 
gratification of the palate, Ave should acquire a 
false hunger^ which may urge us to eat when 
the stomach itself requires no supply, but is al- 
ready loaded with food. Nothing is a more 
common cause of disorder, especially among 
young people, than giving way to a false appe- 
tite of this kind. It may be held for an un- 
doubted rule, that, whenever the desire of eat- 
ing is not gratified by plain and common food, 
it is no real want, but the craving of a pamper- 
ed and vitiated apetite. 

But now to our proper subject. We will 
begin with mentioning what are the substances 
that afford proper sustenance to man ; and then 
consider how they are to be procured. 

The two great divisions of food are into 
vegetable and animal. Man can subsist upon 
either of these alone, but better upon both to- 
gether. Many other animals, likewise, can ac- 
commodate themselves to both sorts of food, 
though most of them, by choice, take to one 
alone. Thus, it is usual to class beasts and 
birds under the heads of carnivorous (flesh-eat- 



16 - 

ers,) and herbivorous (herb or grass-eaters,) and 
granivorus (seed or grain-eaters.) But as for 
man, he may be termed omnivorous (an all-eat- 
er ;) m which privilege no creature more shares 
with him than the hog. They, who judge by 
the teeth of an animal what food is most suita- 
ble to him, find, that man partakes of all the 
three classes above mentioned ; for he has cut- 
ting teeth, piercing teeth, and grinders, and can 
equally manage food of a soft and a hard tex- 
ture. 

Vegetable food is that, which, in most coun- 
tries, constitutes the greater part of man's sus- 
tenance. It is nearest at hand, procurable in 
greatest quantity, and w ith most certainty ; and 
upon the whole, is the wholesomest. Of veg- 
etables, by which I mean all kinds of plants, 
the earth is full, and the varieties of them seem 
to be endless. Almost all of them are food to 
some animals, and many more than is common- 
ly imagined might be made to yield food to man. 
Different as they appear, the proper matter of 
food which they contain, is nearly the same in 
many species, and may be classed under a few 
heads. That vegetable subsistance, which is the 



17 



chief matter of hiuiian aliment, and is found in 
the greater number of the articles commonly 
used for food, is called the farinaceous^ from 
farina^ the Latin word for ineaL This, in its 
separate state, is white, powdery, of little taste 
or smell, capable of swelling with water and 
thickening it, and of being kneaded or worked 
into cakes. It contains a part called starchy 
which will dissolve in Avater, and make a jelly 
with it, as you have doubtless seen in the laun- 
dry ; but this starchy part is not only useful to 
stiffen linen, but is that in which the nourish- 
ment of the meal chiefly consists. There is 
scarcely any vegetable which does not contain 
farinaceous matter in some part of it ; but in 
many, this portion is so small, and mixed with 
so much useless or hurtful matter, that they are 
unfit for human food. Men, therefore, have, 
from the earliest times, employed themselves 
in searching which of them yielded the most of 
this substance, and in the purest state ; and 
they have usally made some of these vegetables 
the staple article of their diet. I will now 
mention some of the principal of them. 

Those grains, which are called corn^ and 
which are the seeds of certain plants of the 



18 



grass tribe, are the great source of farinaceous 
food in almost all the civilized countries of the 
globe. These are not known any where to be 
the natural products of the earth, but are the 
rewards of human industry in cultivation. 
■ They must, indeed, originally have existed 
m a wild state ; but it is a great number of 
ages smce man has taken them for his use, and 
improved and multiplied them by culture. You 
know that, in the Bible, which is the oldest 
record of the history of mankind, mention is 
frequently made of corn as the great article of 
sustenance ; and when the family of the patri- 
arch Jacob, were reduced to great distress from 
years of scarcity, they went into the fertile • 
land of Egypt to purchase corn. The kinds 
usually grown in the temperate climates, are 
wheat, rye, barley, and oats; in the warmer 
countries there are also rice, maize or Indian 
corn, millit and some others. All these have 
a chaffy head, beset with a number of seeds, 
each inclosed in a separate husk. When they 
are detached from their husks, they are found 
to consist of a thinner skin, within which is a 
white substance, or kernel, formed entirely of 
what, when reduced to powder, becomes farina- 



19 



or meal. Some of these grains are more palat- 
able or more nourishing than others ; but all 
are fit for man's food. They may be used 
whole, only taking off the husk or skin ; and 
thus, you know, rice is commonly eaten, after 
being softened by boiling or baking. Shelled 
barley, and oats called grotts, are sometimes 
used in the same manner. It has however, 
been more usual to grind them into a powder, 
more or less fine, and knead it into dough or 
paste, to be afterwards cooked ; but the arts 
by w hich this is done will more properly be de- 
scribed hereafter. 

Various other seeds contain enough of fari- 
naceous matter to be useful as food. Of these 
are many of the leguminous or podded vegeta- 
bles ; such as beans, peas, kidney-beans, and 
the like. Their seeds, when ripe and dry, are 
very mealy, as I dare say you know, by the ex- 
perience of peasepudding to boiled pork. In 
seasons of scarcity, the bread of the poor is of- 
ten mixed with a proportion of bean or pea- 
meal, which makes it coarser and less pala- 
table, indeed, but not less nourishing. With 
us, however, these seeds are more commonly 



20 



eaten in a green and unripe state ; and they are 
the food of domestic animals when dry. 

The chesnut is another seed abounding in 
farinaceous matter, so as to be one of the arti- 
cles of which bread is made in the south of 
Europe. The chesnut, in England, seldom 
comes to maturity, and those brought to our 
tables are imported as a sort of delicacy. But 
in Spain there are whole woods of them, which 
afford the poor great parts of their sustenance. 

The acorns of warm climate, too, are fit for 
human food ; and the poets tell us, that they 
were the first vegetable article made use of 
by man in his primitive state. They are, how- 
ever, very indifferent diet ; and it is justly reck- 
oned a great improvement, when the culture of 
corn was substituted to ' fighting the tusky 
boar for his acorn meal.' 

Several fruits of the tropical countries yield 
farinaceous matter in abunndace ; but none is 
so remarkable in that respect as the bread-fruit, 
a product of the happy isles in the south sea, 
which is said to have exactly the taste and ap- 
pearance of the crumb of a new roll. By means 
of this kind gift of nature, a person with the 
easy labor of planting a succession of these 



21 

trees, may provide bread for his whole life, 
scarcely by ' the sweat of his brow.' 

The roots of plants are another copious 
source of farinaceous nutriment. Most of those 
which swell into a round form, called a bulb, 
or which run down straight and thick , con- 
tain a portion of this matter, though often 
mixed with juices of another kind. We have 
the happiness in this country of being well ac- 
quainted with, perhaps, the most valuable root 
of the farinaceous class, that nature has pro- 
duced — the potatoe. This plant, originally a 
native of North America, is said to have been 
first introduced into Europe by the celebrated 
Sir Walter Raleigh, who cultivated it on his 
estate in Ireland ; whence that country has 
longer enjoyed the benefit of it than Great 
Britain. No other root, with which we are ac- 
quainted, so nearly approaches to the quality of 
grain. A potatoe, of the best sort, properly 
dressed, will break down into an almost perfect 
meal ; and it may be made to yield a considera- 
ble quantity of starch, as pure as that from 
wheat ; it likewise affords a vast increase upon 
culture, and it thence becomes our best re- 
source against scarcity. Some of our other gar- 



22 

den roots, as turnips, carrots and parsnips, owe 
their nourishing property, in part, to their far- 
inaceous matter. In South America is a large 
root of this kind, the yam, which is often used 
as bread at table. A remarkable article of this 
class it the cassava root. This, in its fresh 
state, contains an extremely virulent poison ; 
but, by grating, washing, and drying, this hurt- 
ful part is got rid of; and the remainder is a 
fine meal, much used for making bread. The 
Indian arrow-root, by a similar preparation^ 
yields a pure nutritious flour, which is sold in 
our shops, as a proper food for weak stomachs. 
Another useful farinaceous article is sago. 
This is a sortof gummy substance, found with- 
in the fibres of the stem of a palm-like plant in 
the East Indies. It is taken out by splitting 
the stem ; is separated from the woody part by 
steeping in water ; and is then dried and moul^ 
ded into cakes, or formed into small grains. 



23 



LETTER III. 

On Vegetable articles of Food. 

My Dear Boy. — In my last Letter, I gave 
you a general account of the division of vegeta- 
ble food called the farinaceous. I now proceed 
to inform you what other matter in vegetables 
is nourishing to man. 

The first that I shall mention cannot fail to 
afford us an agreeable topic. It is the sugary or 
saccharine part which is contained in the juices 
of so many plants. With us, the sweet juices 
are chiefly met with in fruits ; and those, too, 
not native fruits, but the foreign products of our 
gardens. Some of our eatable roots also pos- 
sess a degree of sweetness ; as beet, turnip, 
parsnip, carrot, and onion ; not to mention li- 
quorice, which is sweeter than any of these, but 
is scarcely an article of food. Even the farina- 
ceous vegetables acquire a sweet taste when 
they grow or germinate ; that is, when the ru- 
diments of a new plant begin to sprout from 
them. This you may discover in a sprouted 



24 



potatoe, or in grown corn. Malt, you know, is 
extremely sweet ; at least you have probably 
tasted sweet-wort, which is an infusion of malt 
in water ; but malt is only barley, made to ger- 
minate artificially, by means of heat and mois- 
ture, and then suddenly dried. This shows a 
close connexion between the sweet and the 
farinaceous part in vegetables ; and, as the lat- 
ter is nourishing, so is the former. You may 
take it as a general rule, that all sweet things 
afford nutriment ; though I w^ould not have you 
conclude, that they are all fit for food, at least 
without proper mixture with other things. 
Fruits, with us, are rather used for the pleasure 
of the taste, and their cooling property, than 
for the purpose of nourishment ; indeed, the 
acid or tart juice, which they contain with the 
sweet, opposes their nourishing quality by its 
effects on the bowels. But, in the hot coun- 
tries, where fruits are often lusciously sweet, 
they are common articles of food. Grapes, 
especially in their dried state, when they are 
called raisins, are commonly used as such ; and 
figs still more. The date, or fruit of the palm- 
tree, which is a rich sweet, without flavour. 



25 



makes a large share of the diet of the people i., 
Arabia and part of Africa. 

Sugar, peculiarly so called, is the thickned 
juice of a tall reed named the sugar-cane, grow- 
ing both in the East and West Indies, and in 
other warm climates. It contributes to the 
nourishing quality, as well as to the palatable- 
ness, of what it is mixed with ; and you know 
into what a number of agreeable dishes it en- 
ters in our cookery. The soft part of the raw 
sugar-cane is eaten in the countries where it 
grows ; and it is observed, that the negroes 
employed in the making of sugar, notwithstand- 
ing the hardness of their labor, grow fat during 
the season of that business, in consequence of 
the quantity of the cane or its juice that they 
eat. Sugar is also made in North America 
from the sap extracted from the rock-maple^ 
a tree which is abundant in its forests. It is 
not so palatable as that of the sugar-cane, but 
is in general use among the farmers of the 
United States and British Colonies. Honey, 
which is the sweet juice of flowers, extracted 
from them by the bee, contains much nutriment, 
though it is apt to disagree when taken in 
considerable quantities. 



16 



If drink is to be reckoned a part of food, the 
class of vegetable sweets ranks high among the 
substances we are treating of, for it is the basis 
of all fermented liquors. Fermeyitation is an 
internal motion or working of a liquor, by 
which it throws off its thick and foul parts, 
and becomes clear and bright. All sweet 
things, when in a fluid state, if suffered to 
stand in a moderate degree of heat, undergo 
fermentation, by which they lose great part of 
their original taste, and acquire a brisk tartness, 
very agreeable to the palate, and cheering to 
the stomach and spirits. It is then properly 
called a imne^ though that name has been prin- 
cipally applied to the juice of the grape when 
brought to this state. But there are besides, 
you know, the made iinnes^ as we call them, of 
raisins, currants, elder-berries, and various 
fruits, to which some sugar is usually added. 
Then there is cider, or apple-wine ; and mead, 
or honey- wine ; and, what in Great Britain is 
used more than all the rest, malt-liquor, which 
may be termed barley-wine. To make this, 
the barley (as I have already mentioned) is 
rendered sweet by bringing on a sudden germi- 
nation, which is called maltins^ it ; and the 



27 



malt is steeped in hot water to extract its 
sweetness. It is a remarkable circumstance, 
that scarcely any nation, savage or civilized, 
has been discovered, which had not found out 
the art of making some kind of fermented 
drink. This may seem an argument in favor 
of their usefulness ; but I am apt to suspect, 
that it has been their intoxicating quality rath- 
er than their taste or other properties, which 
has rendered them such favorites. Could peo- 
ple be contented with the moderate use of 
them, they might be accounted a valuable ad- 
dition to diet ; but, abused as they are, it might 
almost be wished that pure water were the on- 
ly drink known to mankind. The mischief 
has been made much greater by the discovery 
of the art of extracting the strongest part of 
these liquors separate, by means of extilation. 
The product is then called a spirituous liquor^ 
which is in reality a kind of liquid fire ^ which 
destroys the reason and consumes the vitals. 
Certainly, the preparation of this cannot pro- 
perly be called one of the arts of life. A 
much more innocent product of fermentation is 
vinegar^ a sour liquor, into which all sweet 
liquors turn when they are not made into a 

3 



28 



perfect wine. This is cooling and refreshing, 
and forms an agreeable addition to several 
kinds of food. 

Sweet things are apt to pall the apetite ; 
and by turning sour upon the stomach, to cause 
great disturbance within. They are particu- 
larly hurtful when taken in quantities upon a 
full meal, which is too often the case at des- 
serts after dinner. Excess in them is the 
usual intemperance of young people, to whose 
palates they are particularly agreeable. Thus, 
every pleasure offered by kind nature is turned 
to a bane, if we have not sufficient self-com- 
mand to use it with moderation. 

Another class of nutritious vegetable products 
is the oily. A great number of seeds abound in 
a mild tasteless oil, which, though unfit for food 
by itself, adds greatly to the nourishing quality 
of the substance with which it is mixed. Nuts 
of all kinds contain this oil ; and also the kernels 
of several fruits. The presence of oil may be 
known by mashing the substance and then pour- 
ing on water, which will become milky if oil 
makes a part of it. Almond milk, or emulsion, 
is made in this manner. The cocoa, which is a 
great nut growing upon a tall tree in the tropical 



29 



countries, contains a natural milk, which is a 
mixture of its oily with its sweet and watery 
juices. From many oily vegetables the oil may 
be procured separate by means of simple pres- 
sure. Thus it is got from the fruit of the olive, 
which is the principal source of eating-oil in Eu- 
rope, and is much cultivated in the southern 
countries on that account. The seeds of jElax, 
hemp, rape, mustard, poppy, and several other 
plants, yield oils by pressure, of a similar kind, 
but less palatable ; whence they are used rather 
for other purposes than for food. Chocolate, 
which is so great an article of diet in Spain and 
South America, and is a luxury with us, is a 
kind of solid oil or butter, procured from the nuts 
of the cocoa. Palm oil, procured from the seeds 
of a plant growing in the hotest parts of Africa, 
is used by the natives for the purposes of butter. 
It is to be observed of the oily vegetables, partic- 
ularly those of the nut kind, that they are in 
general difficult of digestion, and liable to do 
much harm, if eaten in large quantities. 

Another tribe of vegetables are nutritious by 
virtue of the mucilaginous or slimy juices which 
they contain. You are probably acquainted 
with plum-tree and cherry-tree gum, and also 



30 



with gum-arabic. These are pure mucilage, 
exuding from the tree, and hardened by the sun 
and air. It is seldom found in this separate 
state ; but there is, perhaps, nO vegetable what- 
ever without a portion of mucilaginous mat- 
ter. Those juices, which become sweet, oily, 
or farinaceous, in a mature state, are muci- 
laginous in an early period. Some plants, how- 
ever, are particularly remarkable for their slimy 
nature, which they keep without changing. 
Such are mallow, marsh-mallow^, comfrey- 
root, linseed, the seed of quinces, and many 
others. These give out their mucilage to water 
on boiling, and render it thick. They are arti- 
cles of medicine rather than food ; but it is good 
to know, on occasion of scarcity, that gum, 
and all those vegetables, which, upon chewing 
become slimy in the mouth, will afford an inno- 
cent nourishment. The caravans, which cross 
the deserts of Arabia, are often loaded with a 
quantity of gum-arabic for the use of manufac- 
turers ; but, when in want of provisions, they 
have sustained life many days by employing the 
gum as food. Some poor people, who dwell on 
the sea shore in cold countries, obtain food from 
certain kinds of seaweeds, which abound in mu- 



31 



cilage ; and the Icelanders, in their inhospitable 
climate, derive great help from a kind of lich- 
en, or liver-wort, a leathery sort of substance 
grovv^ing on the ground, v^hich yields a strong 
jelly w^hen boiled in water or milk. 

I believe I have now mentioned all the prin- 
cipal articles of vegetable food presented to us 
by nature. You see they are very numerous, 
and many of them easy to be procured ; so that 
it would seem there is little danger of absolute- 
ly starving in a climate and soil where plants 
grow in profusion. But a mere casual subsist- 
ence would never provide for a considerable 
population, and is, besides, subject to much un- 
certainty and inconvenience. Human art, 
therefore, has, in all countries, employed certain 
methods to secure and improve these gifts of 
Providence. What these are, will make the 
subject of my future Letters. But these will 
require some time to prepare ; so, at present, 
farewell ! 

3^ 



32 



LETTER 1\^. 

Agriculture. 

Perhaps you may have thought, that I have 
kept you too long upon introductory topics ; but 
it was proper to lay a foundation in nature before 
coming to art, for nature must always furnish the 
material upon which art is to operate. I shall 
now, however, immediately proceed to describe 
the earliest and noblest art of all, that of Agri- 
culture, or the CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. I 

call it the earliest^ presuming, that man was 
originally placed in some happy climate, adapted 
to the growth of vegetables, whence he w as led 
to make choice of vegetable food in preference 
to animal, and to attend to its renewal as 
fast as his consumption destroyed it. You 
know, that the most ancient record we have of 
the human race, represents the first man and 
woman as placed in a garden, which it was their 
business to till. I also call this art the noblest, 
because it is the most useful of all, and that 
which is the foundation of all the rest ; for, where 



33 



plenty of food is produced, man will infallibly 
multiply, and will employ his inventive faculties 
to supply his other wants ; but scarcity of food 
acts as a deadly disease upon society, and cramps 
every exertion. The Chinese have been so sen- 
sible of this truth, that they have considered 
€very thing else as subordinate to the culture of 
the land ; and, though abundantly ingenious in 
many other arts, hold them all mean in compari- 
son with that. In order to do it honor, the em- 
peror himself, surrounded with all his great offi- 
cers of state, on a certain day of the year, 
ploughs a piece of ground with his own hand, 
and sows it with grain ; the produce of which 
4s carefully collected, and its quantity register- 
ed, as one of the most important events of the 
year. 

The business of agriculture consists in the 
selecting for such vegetables as are useful for 
the purposes of life ; freeing them from the in- 
cumbrance of weeds ; promoting their growth 
by a proper working of the soil, by the use of 
manure, and by all the other means, which ex- 
perience has found serviceable to that end ; and, 
finally, gathering them in their due season. I 
shall mention all these different operations r 

3f 



34 

their order; first remarking, that I consider 
gardening as a part of agriculture. 

The choice of the article to be cultivated de- 
pends upon such a previous knowledge of the 
nature of vegetables, as I have attempted to give 
you in my former Letters, and also upon the ex- 
perience of their suitableness to different soils 
and situations. Supposing this determined, the 
next thing is to prepare the ground for its recep- 
tion. In order to allow plants to strike root, 
freely, the land must be loosened and broken 
into small particles, and at the same time cleared 
from the useless plants or w^eeds, already grow- 
ing upon it. Hence, the plough and the spade 
are the first instruments of agricultute. The 
plough, by means of its share or coulter, cuts 
through and turns over the soil over which it is 
drawn. It buries the upper surface, with the 
weeds, and brings up fresh mould from below. 
The weeds, thus uprooted and turned under, die 
and rot, and serve to enrich the soil ; while the 
earth brought to the top is exposed to the ac- 
tion of the sun and air, the dew, rain, and 
snow, which serves to fertalize it, and render 
it soft and mellow. Ploughing is repeated sev- 
real times in stubborn soils ; and, after it has 



35 



done its work, comes the harrow, which with 
its iron teeth, still farther breaks the clods. 
Heavy rollers are also sometimes drawn over, 
to complete the operation. What is done by 
these, in the field, is more neatly performed in 
the garden, by the spade, hoe, and rake ; but 
these instruments do their work more slowly, 
and are managed by men's hands alone ; where- 
as, horses and oxen are fellow-laborers with 
man in the more expeditious culture of the 
field. Where the land is of a spongy nature, 
and overbounding in moisture, it is necessary 
to drain it before it is tilled. This is done by 
cutting deep trenches through it in several di- 
rections, and covering them over with flat 
stones or sods. 

Little need be said as to the necessity of 
fencing cultivated land against the inroads of 
cattle, or other plunderers. This is done ei- 
ther by ditches, banks, rails and stone walls, or 
by live hedges, of strong and prickly shrubs, 
it is chiefly owing to the frequency of green 
hedges, interspersed with trees, in the inclosed 
parts of England, that its prospects are so pe- 
culiarly rich to the eye. Hedges have the bad 
property of harboring a great number of small 

n 



36 

birds and vermin, which prey upon the grain : 
but in return they break the force of the 
storms, and yield faggot-wood for fuel. Before 
countries were fully peopled, while land was 
yet plentiful, it was the usual custom to select 
those pieces of soil, which were naturally best 
adapted to the purposes of agriculture, and to 
leave the rest in a wild and uncultivated state 
— such as we now see it in the heaths and 
commons, which are scattered through even 
the finest parts of our country. The better sort 
of land was then trusted to its own fertility, 
nothing was done to it but the kind of tillage 
above described. When it no longer yielded 
such an increase as to make it worth while to 
expend labor and seed upon it, the land was 
considered as tired or exhausted, and was left 
to repose and recruit itself by the influence of 
the elements. 

This practice is called falloiving ; and by its 
means, tolerable crops of grain were obtained 
about two years in three. But, in process of 
time, land becoming more valuable, it was de- 
sirable both to force it to bear without any in- 
terval of rest, and to bring into some kind of 
cultivation even the poor and refuse parts 



37 



which had before been neglected. This could 
only be effected by the use of manure^ the 
proper application of which has become one of 
the most important points in the art of husban- 
dry. 

Manures are of many kinds, and are employ- 
ed with various intentions. In the larger way 
they are used to change the very substance 
and staple of the soil. Thus, lands consisting 
of mere sand are improved by the mixture of a 
large proportion of marle^ a kind of earth, the 
ingredients of which are clay and calcareous 
earth. This binds the particles of the sand to- 
gether, and prevents its being dispersed by the 
wind, or burnt up by the sun. It enables it to 
hold more moisture, and thereby gives a stron- 
ger support and a richer nutriment to the roots 
of plants. A field, well marled, will retain its 
superior fertility for a number of years. Stiff 
clayey soils, on the other hand, are improved 
by the addition of lime^ which loosens their 
texture, and corrects their coldness they ac- 
quire from imbibing too much water. No one 
kind of earth, pure and unmixed, is well fitted 
for the purposes of husbandry ; and the best 
soils are composed of a mixture of all. 



38 

Most manures, however, are substances pos- 
sessing a fertilizing quality in themselves, and 
proper for almost any kind of soils. It is 
a very beautiful provision in nature, that mat- 
ters the most noisome and offensive, and which 
we should most wish to remove out of the 
reach of our senses, are the most efficacious in 
bestowing fertility upon the earth. Putrid an- 
imals and vegetables, dung of all kinds, every 
thing oily and greasy, the sweepings of streets 
soot, ashes, the scourings of drains and ditches 
—all, in short, that we call filth, refuse, and 
offal, if thrown on the land, is returned to us, 
in the finest verdure, and the richest vegetable 
products. This is now so well understood, 
that a great part of the farmer's attention is 
employed in obtaining supplies of manure. He 
litters his yard thickly Avith straw and stubble, 
which continually trampled by the animals he 
keeps, and receiving all that drops from them, 
becomes an article of great value. This he 
heaps together ; and, when sufficiently mellow- 
ed, he carries it out to his land, spreading it 
over the surface, or ploughing it in, so as to 
mix it thoroughly with the soil. Whenever he 
sends his produce to the next town, his te" 



39 

brings back stable dung, the refuse of manufac- 
tures, and impurities of every kind, which 
would infect the air if not removed, but by this 
use of them are converted into a source of mu- 
tual profit. Populous places, which formerly 
paid a considerable annual sum to scavengers, 
for keeping them clean, now receive a revenue 
from the sale of their filth. Thus, nothing is 
lost ; but things, the vilest in nature, are made 
to contribute to the general good. In situa- 
tions more remote from towns, ingenuity has 
discovered various other articles of, manure. 

On the sea-coast, heaps of fishes thrown up 
by the tide, are sometimes converted to this 
use. Sea-weed, and even the mud of the 
shore, impregnated wdth salt water, prove val- 
uable manures. Salt itself, though formerly 
made the very emblem of barrenness, is found, 
in a due proportion to operate powerfully in 
forcing the grow th of vegetables ; and not on- 
ly sea-salt but every thing of a saline nature 
has this property. Thus the ashes of burnt 
vegetables, which yield the salt called fixed al- 
kali, are employed as a manure ; and it is a 
common practice to pare off the turf of barren 
soils and, piling it in small heaps, to set them 



40 

on fire, after which the ashes are spread over 
the land. In countries where many sheep are 
kept, arable land is much improved by folding 
these animals by night successively over it, 
when it becomes enriched by the oily drop- 
pings from their fleeces, and what else they 
leave behind. 

It is to manure that gardeners are particularly 
indebted for the abundance and luxuriance of 
their products. The rich garden-mould, in- 
deed, is almost entirely composed of rotted ve- 
getables, the relics of long cultivation. By the 
constant application of manure, the gardens in 
the neighborhood of London are enabled to 
yield that prodigious supply of vegetables, 
which such a city requires ; for no sooner is 
one crop gathered, than the ground is prepared 
for the reception of another ; and thus, every 
season of the year, scarcely excepting the dead 
time of winter, has its peculiar harvests. Plen- 
ty of manure gives to the grass-fields round 
London that verdure, so grateful to the eye, 
which, neither the burning suns of July, nor 
the pinching frosts of January, can destroy. 
But in no country of the globe is manure col- 
lected with so much care, and applied with so 



41 

much effect, as in Japan ; where the immense 
population has turned the attention of the in- 
habitants to the utmost production of human 
food. By its means the whole country is cul- 
tivated as a garden, and is covered with a per- 
petual succession of crops of grain and other 
eatable vegetables. But this letter is long 
enough, Farewell, till the next ! 



42 



LETTER V- 

Agriculture. 

My dear Boy, — Before I say more on the 
operations of husbandry, it may be proper to 
remark, that, in the hot countries,'^water is con- 
sidered as the most valuable of alUmanures ; 
and a great share of the skill of the husband- 
man is employed in procuring a due supply of 
it. Plants, it is found, will grow luxuriantly 
in water alone, if aided by a suitable degree of 
warmth; and, in almost every^climate, rank 
vegetation accompanies the course of brooks 
and rivers, and the moisture of marshes. You 
have probably read of the fertility bestowed up- 
on Egypt by the annual inundation of its great 
river, the Nile, which stands it in the stead of 
manure, and even of the rain from heaven. 
That country, in reality, is only a long narrow 
slip of cultivated land on the banks of the Nile, 
bounded on each side by sandy deserts. The 
Ganges, and various other rivers, which take 
their rise from high mountains, are subject to 



43 



the same periodical floods at the melting of the 
snow ; of which the inhabitants make their ad- 
vantage, by drawing off the water though 
trenches and canals to the distant grounds. 

Many are the contrivances in Persia, China, 
and other thirsty countries of the East, for 
throwing up water from the channels of rivers 
and ponds to the higher lands ; without these, 
the heat of the sun would soon wither every 
green thing, and the country would be rendered 
a barren waste. In our part of the world, the 
frequency of rains throughout the year causes 
these cares to be for the most part unnecessary ; 
yet the^practice of occasionally flooding grass 
fields has been adopted with great success in 
several places, and as rich a vegetation has been 
obtained by it as could have been produced by 
any manure. 

A preparatory operation to the culture of land, 
which is now seldom necessary in this country, 
is the clearing it of wood. This is the first 
business in forming settlements in the wilds of 
America ; and so stubborn a piece of work it is, 
that, to a resident in that part of the world, the 
idea of a cleared country is almost the same 
with that of a cultivated one. It is generally 



44 



reckoned too great a labour at first to dig up 
the trees by the roots ; but, after the under- 
wood is cleared away, the great trees are strip- 
ped of their branches, and then girdled^ as they 
call it, which consists in cutting a circle of 
bark round the trunk, whereby it is made gradu- 
ally to decay. This, however, is but a slovenly 
method, and only excusable for want of hands. 

We will now suppose the ground fully pre- 
pared for receiving whatever the husbandman 
chooses to entrust to its bosom. A variety of 
objects present themselves to his choice, of 
which I shall only notice the principal. The 
vegetables selected for cultivation may be class- 
ed under the heads of ''1st, food for man ; 
2ndly, food for animals ; 3rdly, materials for 
clothing and other economical purposes." I 
have already spoken generally of the articles of 
man's vegetable food, and shall now say some- 
thing of their culture. 

Of the five kinds of grain cultivated in this 
country, two, namely, wheat and rye, are call- 
ed winter corn^ because they are usually sown 
in the autumn, and stand through the winter. 
The other three, barley, oats, and Indian corn are 
called spring corn^ not being sown till that sea- 



46 



son. The cause of this diifTerence is, that the two 
first strike deeper roots, and require a longer 
time to bring to maturity than the last. Of 
these grains, ivheat is by much the most valua- 
ble, and is peculiarly the food of man, for 
whose use it is reserved. It yields the purest 
meal, the greatest quantity of starch, and 
makes the whitest and most palatable bread. 
It requires, however, a better soil and climate 
than the others ; and there are many parts of 
this country, particularly the mountainous and 
the more northern, where it cannot be grown 
to advantage. The soil best suited to it is a 
strong loam, or one which, by a large propor- 
tion of clay, is rendered of a fat and tenacious 
quality. As it generally exhausts the fertilit} 
of the earth, it is reckoned bad husbandry to 
sow it two years together on the same spot, 
except in some remarkably rich soils, or with 
abundauce of manure. Several kinds of wheat 
are cultivated, differing in colour, size, and 
fineness of the grain, and suited to different 
soils. The red wheat, which is the most com- 
mon, gives to our fields that peculiar richness 
of hue which prevails about harvest. Wheat, 
is the farmer's pride ; the wheat-sheaf is the 

4 



46 



emblem of plenty ; and the wheaten garland was 
the ancient decoration of Ceres. 

Rye^ though considerably resembling wheat, 
is a much inferior grain. A great deal of 
rye is raised in this country, but much more of 
it is distilled into a liquor called gin^ than 
eaten, for the bread made from it is black and 
clammy. It suits northern climates, as it has 
the advantage of becoming ripe early. It is 
the tallest kind of corn, and therefore affords a 
great deal of straw\ 

Barley is next to wheat in point of value, and 
formerly used to make a great part of the sus- 
tenance of the poor. Still, especially in times 
of scarcity, it is employed, either alone, or mix- 
ed with wheat, for the coarser kinds of bread. 
But the chief use of this grain in England is 
for the making of malt-liquors. I have already 
told you, that malt is barley brought to a be- 
ginning state of germination. The immense 
quantity of these liquors consumed among us 
under the names of beer, ale, and porter, as 
well as the vast distilleries of gin or mal-spirits, 
render barley a very important article of culti- 
vation. Much of it is also used in the fattening 
of oxen, hogs, and poultry. Barley will grow 



47 

upon lighter and poorer soil than wheat, and 
is more commonly produced upon high grounds. 
Its quality, however, is much improved by 
warmth and manure. It is a grain of some of 
the warmest climates, and is the principal food 
of horses in Arabia, Persia, and the other coun- 
tries of the East. Its silvery hue when ripe, 
and the glossy softness of its beards, give great 
beauty to a field of barely waving in the wind. 
A particular kind of it, called hear^ or higg^ is 
grown in Scotland, and much used in making 
the spirituous liquor called whiskey. 

Oats are a still inferior grain, and may be 
considered as the corn of cold and wet coun- 
tries. The northern part of England, and all 
Scotland, used to be fed almost entirely with 
oat-meal ; and still, in many parts, it is the 
great support of the lower classes. The chief 
use of oats in this country, however, is for the 
food of horses ; and so much is the number of 
those animals increased, that England has to 
import great quantities of this grain from abroad, 
in addition to their home growth. Oats will 
grow upon wet and moorish soils, where other 
corn would fail. 



48 



Grain is the great object of culture to the 
farmer on arable land ; and his skill is princi- 
pally shown in suiting the kinds of grain to his 
various soils ; and in establishing a proper ro- 
tation or round of crops, so that none of his 
land may become exhausted by the continued 
bearing of the same kind. The old practice, 
of letting land lie fallow in order to recover it- 
self, is now in a great measure set aside by 
good farmers, and in enclosed fields ; instead of 
which, green erops^ such as turnips, clover, 
tares, vetches, and the like, are interposed be- 
tween the crops of grain. By their means the 
ground never lies a whole year idle, but is al- 
w^ays employed for the support either of man 
or beast. I shall say more of these articles 
when I have done with those products which 
make part of the food of man. 

The leguminous vegetables are less used for 
that purpose in this country than in many 
others. Beans, peas, and kidney-beans, when 
grown for the table, are generally cultivated in 
gardens, and are used while green. We culti- 
vate, indeed, large quantities of field beans, 
])ut they are commonly eaten by horses and 



49 



hogs. They grow best m strong soils, such as 
are suitable for wheat. They are sown in the 
spring, and do not ripen till the very end of 
harvest. The grateful odour of a bean-field is 
well known to all who take country walks at 
the season of their blossoming. They scent 
the air for miles together in those districts 
where they are principally grown. On the 
other hand, the blackness of the pods and stalks 
when they are ripe is very unpleasant to the 
eye. But the farmer, who finds them a very 
profitable crop, does not concern himself with 
such trifles. 

Field-peas are also sown in the spring. 
They are earlier ripe than beans, and thrive 
on lighter soils. The sort called white peas 
form an article of human food, especially of 
sailors w ho eat them boiled with their salt pork. 
The grey peas are principally the food of hogs. 

Potatoes are now cultivated in the large way 
in most parts of this country, and take their 
turn with other crops. They are reckoned to 
be of the best quality on light, sandy soils ; 
they will, however, thrive on almost any soil 
deep enough for their roots^ and sufficiently 



50 



manured. There is no way in which ground 
can be employed in these climates so profitably 
to the production of human food, as in the cul- 
ture of potatoes. The quantity of a good crop 
is prodigious, many times exceeding the weight 
of any crop of grain on the same space. By 
perfecting their growth under ground they are 
little exposed to injury from the weather ; — a 
peculiar advantage in a wet climate. Potatoes 
are used for the food of other animals, as well 
as man ; but they do not answer well without 
previous boiling. 

But I have now, I believe, given you as much 
provision as you can digest at once ; so fare- 
well ! 



51 



LETTER VT. 

Agriculture^ Continued. 

Let us now see, my dear boy, what man 
has done more particularly for the sustenance 
of those animals, which he has made, as it were, 
part of his household. It cannot be pretended, 
that he has the merit of disinterested kindness 
in this matter; yet things are so ordered, that, 
by consulting his own good, he in reality pro- 
motes that of the creatures, which he has taken 
under his dominion. They are in general bet- 
ter fed, better defended from the inclemencies 
of the weather and from their enemies, in his 
keeping, than in a state of nature ; and, when 
the quantity of labour, which he bestows upon 
them, is considered, he may be reckened fairly 
to have purchased the advantages, which he 
derives from them. 

Of the leguminous plants, cultivated solely 
for the use of cattle, are clover or trefoil of va- 
rious kinds, vetches or tares, sainfoin, lucerne, 
and some others. Clover is frequently sown 

4t 



52 



along with grain ; so that, when the grain is cut, 
a field covered with this plant remains. It is 
a rich nutriment for all domestic animals ; and 
they are so fond of it, that, when suffered to 
eat it green in the field, at their pleasure, they 
are liable to burst, from the quantity they de- 
vour, which ferments and swells in their stom- 
achs. So you see that it is not men alone, who 
are objects to indulge their appetites to a hurt- 
ful excess ; and that living in clover is a dan- 
gerous condition to all creatures. Clover hay 
is a strong food for working cattle. Tw o crops 
of it are generally mow n in the year, and is a 
valuable article in the farmer's stock. Vetches 
are often mown early in the year for green 
fodder, and the land is then laid down for some 
other crop. Lucerne will give several succes- 
sive green crops in the season. Sainfoin is 
reckoned particularly suitable to thin, chalky 
soils, and it is dried for hay. 

The turnip forms a very important article in 
the improved system of husbandry. This plant, 
you know, produces a root of remarkable size 
and roundness, consisting of a very white, firm 
substance, of a sweetish taste. When cultiva- 
ted in gardens it is one of our table vegetables, 



53 



and I dare say you are acquainted with its me- 
rit as a companion to boiled beef and mutton. 
The field turnips are of the same kind, but are 
grown as food for cattle. They thrive best in 
a light soil ; and, instead of impoverishing the 
ground, they excellently prepare it for crops of 
grain. By their means some of the poorest 
sandy soils have been brought into culture, and 
made to yield valuable crops of barley and oats. 
They are frequently sown as soon as ever the 
corn is carried off the land, with the intention 
of using them as the winter and spring food of 
i^attle, when all other forage is scarce ; and 
:hus, the farmer is enabled to maintain a much 
.arger stock of animals than he could otherwise 
do. Turnip fields greatly enliven a country to 
the eye by their vivid green, at a time when 
the land in general wears the sad hue of the 
declining year ; but they are not equally agree- 
a3le to the other senses, since they have a 
rankness of flavor, which infects the air, and 
which may be perceived in the milk and flesh 
of the animals fed upon them. In this case, as 
in many others, the necessities of a large com- 
miinity,cause quality to be sacrificed to quantity. 
These roots are either eaten upon the spot 

4t 



54 

where they grow, or pulled up and given in the 
fold or yard. Sheep and oxen both feed readi- 
ly upon them, and acquire great dexterity in 
scooping out the heart and leaving the rind. 

Other vegetables, which have got from the 
gardens to the field as the food of animals, are 
cabbages, coleworts, carrots, and parsnips. All 
these, in certain soils, answer well, and make 
a useful variety of cultivation. 

But the principal article on which domestic 
animals are nourished is^ra^^; that which con- 
stitutes the verdant carpet spread spontaneous- 
ly by nature's hand over the surface of tht 
earth. Of grasses there are almost numberlesj 
species, which grow intermixed, and are adapt 
ed to all soils, from the marsh to the mountain 
Farmers, in general, do not trouble themselves 
to select particular kinds of grass for their 
meadows and pastures, but trust to nature to 
cover them with the sorts proper to the soil 
and situation. Yet, when land is changed 
from arable to pasture, and the seeds of grass 
are designedly sown upon it, care should be 
taken to choose the best sorts, as free as possi- 
ble from weeds. A species called ray-gra^j is 
a favorite in some places, on account of the 



55 



height to which it grows early in the year ; 
but it is hard and coarse. It is not uncom- 
mon to mix a proportion of white clover seed 
with those of grass, by which the ground be- 
comes well covered at the surface. 

Grass is either eaten on the place, which is 
called pasturage^ or it is left untouched to the 
time of its full growth, and then mown, dried 
in the field, and made into hay. Though grass 
in drying loses great part of its juices, yet it re- 
tains its nourishing properties, and is improved 
in its fragrance. The smell of new hay, you 
know, is one of the most grateful odours ; and, 
when well preserved, it retains its sweetness a 
long time. The process of haymaking consists 
in the thorough drying of the grass, when cut, 
and it should be performed w ith as much expe- 
dition as possible. For this purpose it is spread 
abroad to the action of the sun and wind, fre- 
C[uently turned over, and formed into little heaps 
or cocks, to protect it from showers and the night 
dew. As the season in which hay is made, 
the middle ot summer, is subject to violent rains, 
it is an anxious time for the farmer, who often 
sees his crop completely w etted when just fit to 
carry, and has all the business of spreading, turn- 



66 



ing, &:c. to go over again, to the great addition 
of expense, and injury of the product. Negli- 
gence and delay are surer of their punishment 
in this than in most country work and " making 
hay while the sun shines,'' has long been a pro- 
verbial precept. If, however, the hay is carried 
in too much haste, before it is sufficiently dry, 
it is apt to heat so much in the ricks as to take 
fire ; and there are few years in which such acci- 
dents do not happen in some parts of England, 
especially in the well manured fields of Middle- 
sex, two crops of hay are got in the year ; but, 
more commonly, farmers are content with a 
single crop, and the field is employed for the re- 
mainder of the year as pasture. 

As for the fields, which are constantly pastur- 
ed, the only attention paid to them, is, to re 
move the cattle from one to another, as the grass 
is eati n down, and give it time to shoot up 
again. Low rich grounds by the side of 
streams, especially where subject to occasional 
floods, can scarcely be more profitably employ- 
ed than by being left in grass. The expense 
of culture is small, and the product, whether 
hay or green fodder, is valuable. All the dairy 
farming for the production of cheese and butter 



67 



depends chiefly upon grass ; for none of the ar- 
tificial foods for cattle yield milk so sweet and 
pure as the natural grasses. The short grass of 
mountains and high downs is the favourite pas- 
ture of sheep, who thrive upon it better than up- 
on richer herbage. Large tracts in this country 
are left in a state of nature to serve as sheep 
walks^ which is probably the best use to which 
they can be applied. 

What nature has done, by means of grass, 
for the sustenance of animals, is seen to perfec- 
tion in the vast meadows, or savannahs, as they 
are called, which border the great rivers in the 
southern parts of America. These are covered 
with prodigious herds of wild oxen, the parents 
of which escaped from the colonists, who first 
settled in the country, and multiplied in these 
luxurious pastures, where the warmth and mois- 
ture of the climate afford a perpetual growth of 
herbage, both summer and winter. Along with 
them are numbers of buffaloes, and deer of vari- 
ous species, the original inhabitants of the coun- 
try. Here the grass grows to such a length as 
almost to conceal the tall animals which feed 
in it, and it is frequently fired by the hunters to 
force them from their retreats. A remarkable 



58 



instance of the quick increase of the grazing 
animals in unstinted pasturage was lately pro- 
duced from the settlement of New South 
Wales. A party sent to explore the interior 
parts of the country, discovered, in a green se- 
questered valley, a herd of near a hundred cows 
and calves feeding, protected by a large and 
very ferocious bull. As no animals of this 
species are natives of that part of the world, they 
must have been the progeny of a pair of horned 
cattle belonging to the settlers, which had ram- 
bled away a very few years before. 

I think I may now close my account of such 
articles of food for man and animals as in our 
country are objects of agriculture. I might, in- 
deed, take notice of some products used in 
drink ; as apples and pears, which afford cider 
and perry, the common beverage in this coun- 
try ; and hops, an ingredient in malt liquor, 
largely cultivated in various parts of Eng- 
land : but it does not come within my plan to 
enter into these particulars. For the same 
reason, I shall forbear to enumerate the pro- 
ducts of the garden, and the several methods of 
culture practised in it ; both of which are so ex- 
tremely various, that large books have been 



59 



written of them alone. It is enough in general 
to observe, that the additions made to our diet by 
the art of gardening have tended to render it 
both more pleasant and salubrious. The gar- 
den vegetables, v^diether eaten raw^, as sallads, 
or boiled, as greens and roots, are the best cor- 
rectors of strong and salt animal food, and ef- 
fectually prevent that dreadful disease, the scur- 
vy, which proves so destructive to seamen, and 
to those on shore, who live on the same kind 
of provisions. In reading accounts of long voy- 
ages, you will be struck with the eager longing 
for fresh vegetables of any kind shown by the 
poor sailors. For their use, gardens are culti- 
vated at all places where they touch in their 
course ; and navigators have been attentive to 
sow garden seeds plentifully on all uninhabited 
shores and islands they have visited, that those 
whom chance should afterwards bring to the 
same spots might find necessary refreshments. 

A garden is an appendage of civilized life ; 
it decorates the palace and cheers the cottage. 
A very small piece of ground cultivated as a 
garden, will afford essential support to a poor 
family ; and it is to be wished, that no labor- 
er's house in the country were unprovided with 



60 



this benefit. By the help of cabbages, onions, 
kidney beans, lettuces, and the like, many a 
scanty meal might be improved ; and the em- 
ployment of a few leisure hours or holidays 
would be sufficient to add materially to the 
comfort of the year. But it is time to con- 
clude my letter. Adieu. 



61 



LETTER VII. 

Animal Food^ and the means of procuring it. 

My Dear Boy, — Having thus long kept 
you, like an ancient Pythagorean or modern 
Bramin, solely upon vegetable food, I now pro- 
ceed to mend your diet, by adding to it that 
large supply of human sustenance, which is de- 
rived from the animal creation. As I am con- 
vinced that man has as good a right to kill 
beasts for his food, as they have to kill one an- 
other, I shall not attempt to spoil your appetite, 
by interesting your compassion in favor of the 
victims, or dwelling upon the cruelty of a 
butcher's shop. You may find some very pret- 
ty lines to the purpose, in the poet Thompson, 
who, however, could eat his beef-steak with as 
good a relish as any man. Treat animals 
kindly while they live, and never take away 
their lives wantonly ; but you need not scruple 
to make that use of their bodies which nature 
has plainly ordained. 



62 



Although I have supposed that the earliest 
food of man was the vegetable kind, yet there 
are several situations in which we can conceive 
him placed, that would rather prompt him to 
seek his first sustenance from the animal tribes 
—and even at this day, in various parts of the 
globe, he is only a hunter or a fisher. In the 
midst of vast forests, abounding with game, but 
scarcely provided with eatable vegetables, men 
have become a kind of beasts of prey, and their 
appetites have been entirely carniverous. On 
the inhospitable shores of the frigid regions, 
where the rigours of the climate deny any oth- 
er product of the earth than a little coarse 
grass, and a few stunted herbs, the human na- 
tive, through necessity, looks to the fertility of 
the sea to compensate for the barrenness of the 
land, or climbs the naked rocks to collect the 
eggs and young deposited tliere by those fowls 
which are fishers like himself. 

There is scarcely any quadruped, bird, or 
fish, upon which man cannot occasionally feed ; 
but he usually prefers those whose flesh is ten- 
der, and free from any peculiar rankness of fla- 
vor. The parts in which the principle nour- 
ishment consists are the muscular flesh, and the 



63 



fat. The former is rendered nourishing by the 
glutinous or jelly-like matter it contains ; the 
latter, by its oil. Other parts, however, even 
the bones themselves, may be made to yield the 
same substances by boiling. 

It would be an endless task to describe all 
the modes w^hich the ingenuity of man has in- 
vented for catching wild animals; nor could I, 
by words alone, make many of them intelligi- 
ble ; we will, however, take a general view of 
the principal. Being less swift than the great- 
er part of the objects of his pursuit, he has been 
obliged to have recourse either to missile wea- 
pons, by which he might arrest them in their 
flight, or to traps and snares to detain them. 
No savages have been discovered so void of art, 
as not to have adopted contrivances of both 
these kinds. The missile weapons have gen- 
erally been the bow and arrow, the dart and the 
sling. With all these, I suppose, you are ac- 
quainted, and probably you have yourself been 
a manufacturer of bows and arrows. Armed 
with these, the hunter places himself in am-" 
bush, and strikes at the passing game ; or he 
steals upon them unawares as they feed, craw- 
ling on the ground, or concealing his approach 

5 



64 



behind the stuffed skin of some harmless ani- 
mal, which figm^e is usually called a stalking 
horse. The range of these weapons, however- 
is triffing, compared with that of fire-arms, 
which have taken place of them whenever 
they could be procured. By their means, the 
bird is brought down from the summit of the 
loftiest tree, or is even stopped in his rapid 
flight : nor does the fleet antelope or bounding 
chamois escape the ball of the sportsman from 
his distant station. The deadly force and sure 
aim of these arms have even emboldened the 
hunter to attack, in the open plain, the huge 
elephant and the formidable rhinoceros. 

But greater numbers of wild animals, and of 
shyer natures, are caught by the contrivances 
of snares. In constructing these, extraordina- 
ry ingenuity has been displayed by some of the 
most untutored nations ; thereby showing what 
the human faculties are capable of when earn- 
estly applied to any one object. By their means, 
the terrible lion is made a captive to man, as 
well as the crafty fox or timid hare. Birds are 
frequently taken in nets in which they are en- 
tangled by various artifices ; some of their own 
species are often trained to assist in the fraud, 



; 



€5 



^nd they seem to take a malicious pleasure in 
decoying their companions to the snares into 
which themselves have fallen. Fishes, inhab- 
iting an element in which they cannot be fol- 
lowed, are caught either by the allurement of 
baited hooks, or by nets spread to intercept 
their course. Some of the larger species are 
struck, while swimming, with a dart or harpoon 
skilfully launched from a boat. 

The voyager, Dampier, has given a very cu- 
rious account of a tribe of men, whose art in 
taking their animal prey is truly extraordinary. 
They are called the Moskito Indians, and are 
natives of part of that neck of land which sep- 
arates North from South Am^erica. These 
people are brought up from their infancy to 
throw the lance or harpoon with great exact- 
ness, in order to fit them for their principle em- 
ployment, which is that of striking fish, sea-tor- 
toises, and manati. For their dexterity they 
are much valued by the crews of ships frequent- 
ing those parts, who give them great encourage- 
ment to come on board ; and it is said, that a 
couple of them in a ship will provide subsist- 
ence for a hundred men. They bring with 
them their little canoes, in which thej regular- 

6^ 



66 



\y dispose all their tackle, and they will not 
suffer any other person to get into them. In- 
deed, any European sailor would be in danger 
of immediately oversetting them. With these, 
they put out just at their pleasure, for they will 
bear no control, and they seldom fail of suc- 
cess. ^'I have known,'' says Dampier, ''two 
Moskito men every day for a week bring aboard 
two manatees, the least of which has not weigh- 
ed less than 600 lbs.'' They are also equally 
dexterous in killing game in the woods ; so 
that they are well able to subsist themselves 
in any situation. The same writer gives an 
entertaining relation of a Moskito Indian, who, 
being left accidentally on the island of Jnan 
Fernandez, lived there alone for three years, 
till he was brought away by the ship to which 
Dampier belonged. He was left with a gun 
and a knife, a small horn of powder, and a few 
shot ; which being spent, he contrived a way, 
by notching his knife, to saw the barrel of his 
gun into small pieces ; wherewith Jie made 
harpoons, lances, hooks, and a long knife. 
These he forged, by heating in a jfire, and then 
hammering out and bending by means of stones ; 
after which, he gave them a proper, temper, 



67 



and ground them to an edge by long labour. 
By the help of these instruments he procured 
such provisions as the island afforded, either 
goats or fish ; and was in perfect health and vi- 
gour at the time they found him. 

These arts oflife^ however, when they form 
the employment of a whole people, denote a 
state of society little advanced in civilization. 
The hunter-tribes, spread over a vast tract of 
country, and living much in solitude, have small 
opportunity of improvement from mutual inter- 
course. They resemble the animals which live 
upon the same prey with themselves ; and, 
when not engaged in the chase, they either 
make war upon each other, or speed their time 
in absolute indolence. Their supply of food, 
likewise, is always precarious ; sometimes abun- 
dant beyond their wants, at other times so 
scanty as to reduce them to the extremities of 
famine. 

A great advance from this condition of man- 
kind is the shepherd or pastoral state. Certain 
animals seem formed by nature to be domesti- 
cated by man, and live under his protection, 
which they repay by a regular supply of his ne- 
cessities. From the earliest times we read of 
5t 



68 

tribes, which have wandered over extensive re- 
gions, driving their flocks and herds from pas- 
ture, to pasture, fed by their milk and flesh, and 
clothed with their hides and fleeces. This was 
the life led by the ancient patriarch in the plains 
of Mesopotamia, by the Scythians, Arabs, and 
Numidians ; and at this day it is exactly follow- 
ed by the Bedoweens of Asia and Africa, and 
the numerous hordes of Tartars. The animals 
selected for domestication have been the sheep, 
the goat, the ox or beeve kind, the camel, and 
the rein-deer. The Tartars join the horse to 
their other pastoral wealth ; and not only as a 
beast of burden, but as affording a choice ali- 
ment from its milk and blood. Such a kind of 
life will not admit of fixed dwellings. The 
shepherd people have therefore always inhabit- 
ed tents, or huts placed upon wheels, with 
which they have constructed moveable towns or 
villages, wherever the change of pasturage led 
them. By living together they have acquired 
more civilization than the hunters, though less 
than the cultivators of the land. 

These pastoral nations are now, however, 
few and inconsiderable, and the rearing of do- 
mestic animals is a part of the regular business 



69 

of farmers in every country, their flesh and other 
products being in general use. In our Island 
the quadrupeds bred for food are chiefly the ox, 
the sheep, and the hog. Goats are kept in 
flocks only in some of the mountainous parts of 
Wales and Scotland. Deer are confined to 
gentlemen's parks, and considered only as ob- 
jects of luxury. Rabbits in a warren can hard- 
ly be said to be under the dominion of man, 
though fiirst placed there and occasionally fed 
by him. 

One of the articles of food yielded by the do- 
mestic animals deserves particular notice, as it 
is long been an object of rustic art. This is 
milk^ a liquor prepared by nature in the females 
of a:ll the w^arm-blooded quadrupeds for the sus- 
tenance of their young ; but which, man, who 
applies to his own use every thing that he finds 
suitable to his occasions, has converted into an 
aliment for himself. It is of a middle quality 
between animal and vegetable ; and indeed par- 
takes so much of the latter, that the gentle 
tribes, which reject all animal food, do not scru- 
ple the use of milk. It is the milk of the her- 
bivorous animals alone which enters into human 
diet ; and the cow, as the largest and most pro- 



70 



ductive of the kind, is the species commonly 
preferred for the dairy. In many countries, in 
deed, and in the northen parts of this island, 
sheep and goats also are milked ; and the milk 
of the ass is used as a medicinal article of nour- 
ishment ; but cow's milk is the staple upon 
which this kind of food depends. Milk is so 
quickly and copiously separated from the fluids 
of the animal, that it retains many of the pro- 
perties of the vegetables on which it feeds. 
What a delicous draught is milk fresh from a 
cow just returned from a pasture abounding in 
fine grass and wild flowers ! To an unvitiated 
palate none of the artificial products of fermen- 
tation are comparable to it. 

Milk is good either as nature yields it, or 
boiled and mixed with bread and other farina- 
cious substances. After standing awhile, it 
throws up a thick scum called cream^ which, by 
brisk agitation, is mostly converted into the sol-- 
id oil so much used in our diet under the name 
of butter. The instrument by which this is 
made is a churn, and a proper degree of heat as- 
sists the process. Fresh butter is one of the 
most grateful of oily or unctuous substances ; 
and, when not used in too great a quantity, is 



71 

a wholesome article of food. Milk contains al- 
so a mucilaginous part, which separates after 
the coagulation or curdling of the fluid. It 
forms a white solid matter called curd, which, 
pressed and salted, becomes cheese^ the other 
most important preparation from milk. It is a 
strong and hearty diet for working people, and 
a delicacy at the tables of the rich. There is a 
great variety in cheeses as to taste and other 
qualities, and the manufacture of them is one 
of the principal arts of the rural housewife. 
Many pasturing districts are almost entirely de- 
voted to its production, for the demand for it is 
very considerable. The whey^ or watery part, 
which constitutes the chief bulk of the milk, 
holds a proportion of sugary matter dissolved in 
it, and soon turns sour. When fresh, it is a 
pleasant cooling drink ; but most of it falls to 
the share of the hogs. I omitted to mention, 
that the curdling of milk is promoted by add- 
ing a little of a liquor called rennet, which is 
made by steeping a piece of the inside skin of a 
calfs stomach in warm water. Dairy-women 
keep by them these skins salted and dried for 
use. 

5t 



72 

The flesh of the domestic animals commonly 
employed for food in this part of the world is 
that of the ox and the sheep, called beef and 
mutton ; of the same animals, while young, call- 
ed veal and lamb ; and of the hog, called pork. 

Goat's flesh, from its rankness, is seldom 
eaten but from necessity, but that of the kid is 
nearly as good as lamb. The above go under 
the name of butchers' meat, and are in constant 
use of the tables of those who can afford it.^ 
They are all wholesome, when joined with a 
due proportion of vegetables. Where it is re- 
quisite to keep them long, as in sea voyages, salt 
is applied in large quantities ; but the meat is 
thereby rendered less salubrious and nourish- 
ing. Beef and pork take salt the best, and 
may be preserved the longest. 

Besides these quadrupeds, some birds have 
been rendered domestic, and agreeably vary 
man's animal food. Those selected for this 
purpose are the poultry kind, of which are the 
common cock, the turkey, peacock, and guin- 
ea-fowl ; pigeons, both the wild and the tame ;. 
and some of the aquatics, as ducks and geese^ 
These are reared at little cost by the farmer, im 
whose yard and fields they pick up what wouldl 



X 



73 



otherwise be lost ; and their delicacy renders 
them a valuable object of profit. 

Fishes may be said in some measure to be 
domesticated by the practice of storing ponds 
with them, whence they may be taken at pleas- 
ure. But in this way they are regarded only 
as articles of luxury, like the venison of the 
park, and the game of the cover. Fish, as an 
article of common food, is taken from the sea 
or rivers, and sometimes so abundantly as to 
form the principle subsistence of the neighbor- 
ing inhabitants. But its supplies are uncertain, 
depending much upon weather and season ; nor 
is it so nourishing as flesh. 

But I fear I have tired you with the length 
of my Letter ; so farewell ! 



74 



LETTER VIII. 

On the preparation of Food. 

Having now laid before you a very abund- 
ant supply of provision, it is time to consider how 
it is to be used. This is a care which does not con- 
cern other animals, who take their food in the state 
in which nature has presented it to them ; but 
man has scarcely ever been found so savage, as 
not to have employed some mode of preparing 
the articles of his food, so as to render them 
more wholesome and agreeable than in their 
raw state. Hence the art of cookery may be 
reckoned among the arts of life ; for, though it 
has been abused to the purposes of voluptuous- 
ness, yet, in its principles, it is founded on just 
considerations of health and economy. If it be 
requisite to ennoble cookery, it may be regard- 
ed as belonging to physic in its intention, and 
chemistry in its practice : I do not mean, how- 
ever, to enter further into its mysteries, than to 
give you a notion of some of its simplest ope- 
rations. The kitchen, you know, is a kind of 



76 

prohibited place to our sex ; and I do not wish 
you to incur the approbrious title of ^, cot. Men, 
when alone, have, indeed, a right to be prac- 
titioners in this art, and sailors are often found 
to be very able cooks. But we will first visit 
a place where a previous preparation is going 
on. 

I have already mentioned, that most of the 
farinacious seeds are reduced to powder before 
they are used as human food. In this process 
they are at the same time deprived of their 
husk, or outer coat ; which, indeed, it is 
necessary to do, even when their kernels are 
left entire. Savage nations have been content- 
ed with pounding or bruising their corn be- 
tween stones ; but civilized people, from the 
earliest records of society, have had the prac- 
tice of grinding it in mills. This operation is 
performed by means of two round flat stones, 
of a hard quality, the upper of which turns 
upon the other which is fixed. They are set 
at such a distance as just to admit between 
them the grains of corn, which are poured thro' 
a hole from above. These are partly crushed, 
partly cut by the edges of scores made in the 
mill-stones, and at length brought to a meal 



76 



more or less fine, according to the space left be- 
tween the stones. The whirling motion at the 
same time throws the meal to the outer part of 
the stones, where it is received in a circular box, 
and carried downwards through a trough. It 
then passes through sieves of different fineness, 
which separate the bran and the other skinny 
parts from the pure flour The degree in which 
this separation is effected makes the diiference 
in flower, as to whiteness and fineness. An- 
ciently, corn-mills were worked by the strength 
of men, and this business constituted one of the 
most laborious of domestic employments. But 
this labor is now saved in civilized countries by 
the invention of wind and water mills, in which 
the motion is imparted either by the force of 
the wind acting upon sails, or by a current of 
water pushing against boards which are fasten- 
ed to a wheel. Many of these, especially the 
water-mills, are very curious machines, of great 
power and complicated contrivance, in which 
the operations of drawing up the sacks of corn, 
emptying them, grinding, sifting, and the rest, 
are performed with worderful ease and regular- 
ity, without any help of men's hands. 



77. 

As to the preparation which the articles of 
food undergo in picking, paring, cleansing and 
separating the useful parts from the refuse, it 
is too obvious to require any particular men- 
tion ; so we now proceed to the art of cooke- 
ry itself. 

All cookery depends upon the application of 
heat either dry, or through the medium of wa- 
ter or steam. It is an universal effect of heat 
to expand the substance to which it is applied, 
and thereby render it more easy to be dissolved 
or broken down. Such, indeed, is the power 
of heat, that scarcely any substance can sus- 
tain a high degree of it, without that separa- 
tion of its parts which destroys its form, and 
which chemists term decomposition. It is ev- 
ident, therefore, that heat must prepare food 
for being digested in the stomach. It likewise 
heightens the taste of various things, corrects 
their rowness, and makes them more agreeable 
to the palate. In some instances it dissipates 
noxious parts, and converts a natural poison 
into wholesome nutriment. Of the methods 
of applying heat, the simplest is exposing the 
substance to a naked fire ; and this must be 
the only one practiced by those nations which 



78 

have not discovered any material that can hold 
water, and at the same time bear the fire. Thus 
the natives of the South Sea Islands, when first 
visited by our navigators, had not the least no- 
tion of boiling water, and were much surprised 
at being scalded by putting their hands into a 
kettle. 

The effect of dry heat is, I dare say, famil- 
iar to you in the school-boy cookery of roasting 
an apple or potatoe. You would perceive, that 
in both these cases it softens and breaks down 
the firm pulp of the substance, causes it to 
shrink in bulk by expelling part of its moisture, 
improves the state, and, in the potatoe, corrects 
that earthy flavour, which is disagreeable in 
the raw root. Toasting, baking, and roasting 
are different processes of this kind. In baking, 
the heat is confined in a close place, and appli- 
ed equally and regularly, I shall speak partic- 
ularly of the principal article cooked in this 
way, which is bread. 

This simplest manner of preparing meal or 
flour for eating is by making it into cakes with 
water alone. Wheaten flour is thus made into 
ship-biscuit, which is rendered so hard and dry 
by baking, that it will keep soynd for a great 



79 



length of time. Oat-cakes are made in the 
same manner, and are usually baked over the 
fire upon a flat stone or iron plate. But, from 
the earliest times, civilized nations have had the 
practice of converting corn into what is proper- 
ly named bread. This is done by mixing the 
flower with ?i ferment^ or leaven^ and working 
it up, in a proper quantity of water (generally 
with the addition of salt) into a soft paste, or 
dough, which, when set in a warm place, ac- 
quires an intestine motion, and heaves or rises. 
It is then made into loaves, and put into the 
oven. By baking, the loaves become covered 
with a firm crust, including a soft spongy crumb. 
The superiority of bread over biscuit, or un- 
leavened cakes, consists in its being more taste- 
ful, more easily chewed, and lighter to the 
stomach. The ferment employed is, in this 
country, almost universally, that scum which 
arises to the top of malt liquors while ferment- 
ing, and is called barm or yeast. In most oth- 
er countries it is a piece of the dough itself, 
suffered to grow sour ; and this is what partic- 
ularly bears the name of leaven. It is very ma- 
terial to the making of good light bread, that 
the ferment should be thoroughly mixed with 



80 



the dough, and the whole mass well kneaded^ 
by which means a little leaven leaveneth the 
whole Imnp. 

Having thus instructed you in the important 
art of bread-making, I shall not descend to the 
consideration of puddings, pies, and pastry, the 
invention of luxury, but proceed to other mat- 
ters of plain cooking. 

The application of dry heat w^as, doubtless, 
the original cookery of animal food ; and Ho- 
mer's heroes are represented as very expert at 
cutting up a sheep or a porker, and broiling 
steaks upon the coals. With the cleanly inter- 
vention of a gridiron, this is still one of the 
most favorite kinds of cookery ; and few deli- 
cacies are so grateful to a true English palate as 
a tender beef-steak done secundem artem at a 
chop-house. Frying in a pan is, in some re- 
spects, an improvement on this process, as it 
protects the meat from the smoke and flame, 
and preserves the fat. But since neither of 
these methods would succeed with a whole an- 
imal or a large joint, it was a bright invention 
to run a spit through the subject, and turn it 
round and round before the fire. This contri- 
vance, from the gradual and equal application 



81 

of the heat, has somewhat of the effect of 
baking ; and, being practiced in the open air, 
it avoids a kind of disagreeable taint, which 
meat is apt to get in the oven. Various devi- 
ces have been adopted to make the spit go 
without stationing a poor boy where he is half 
roasted himself in turning it. The jack has 
obtained the final preference, set in motion 
either by means of a weight, which turns an 
axle as it decends, or by flyers placed in the 
chimney, and turned round by the air rushing 
upwards, which last is usually called a smoke- 
jack. Roasting is much practiced in England, 
where they love to bring large joints to table ; 
but it wastes much of the juices of the meat, 
and consumes a great deal of fuel. All the ap- 
plications of dry heat make animal food more 
savoury by imparting a degree of burnt flavor 
(called by chemists empyreiimd) to its oils, and 
exalting or rendering more pungent its salts. 
At the same time, it is made more stimulating, 
and less fit for delicate constitutions and weak 
stomachs. 

The use of water in cookery is very exten- 
sive. The roots and green parts of vegetables 
are commonly boiled, whereby their substance 



82 



is made tender, and the crude unpleasant taste 
of many of them is corrected. Several kinds 
of vegetables, such as the whole cabbage tribe, 
would not be eatable without boiling. I have 
known boys make themselves seriously ill by 
eating raw turnips and carrots, which lay undi- 
gested on their stomachs, whereas by boiling 
they become perfectly wholesome. Water 
poured boiling hot upon certain herbs, extracts 
their taste and flavor, and thus affords an arti- 
cle either of food or medicine. These liquors 
are called infusions, or teas. The latter name, 
is borrowed from the real tea^ a shrub growing 
in China ; the leaves of which are brought 
over in prodigious quantities, and at a vast ex- 
pense, to furnish us with a beverage, which, 
by habit, is now become almost a necessary of 
life. Yet it affords no nutriment of itself, but 
only serves to give water an agreeable flavour, 
with some other qualities, which perhaps are 
more hurtful than useful. Such is the powder 
of custom ! The berries of the coffee shrub are 
employed in a similar manner in most countries 
in Europe, and more particularly in Turkey 
and other parts of the East. 



83 



Animal flesh boiled in water becomes thorough- 
ly penetrated with the heat, without any 
of the effects of burning. It is therefore milder 
than roasted or boiled meat, and is on that ac- 
count fitted for weak and delicate persons. But 
the action of the water robs it of some of its 
nutritious juices, and, if long continued, ren- 
ders it quite tasteless, and void of nourishment. 
This property of water is the foundation of a 
very useful kind of cookery, that of making 
broths or soups, which contain all the nutritive 
part of animal substances, without the gross 
and useless parts. They have generally the 
addition of some of the aromatic or strong fla- 
voured herbs, and are often thickened with far- 
inaceous matters. It is, perhaps, the highest 
exploit of cookery, as an useful art, to produce 
these agreeable and salubrious mixtures of ani- 
mal and vegetable substances, in which every 
thing is employed to the greatest advantage in 
an econimical view, and the palate and diges- 
tion are equally consulted. 

The use of condiments, or seasonings to food, 
though much abused to the purposes of luxury 
and intemperate gratification, has, however, a 
place in simple cookery. Salt is the principal 



81 



of these articles ; and few nations, who have 
been acquainted with it, have failed to employ 
it in some manner in their diet. The people 
of Otaheite were fonnd to have the practice of 
setting by them a vessel of sea-water, into 
which they dipped each morsal before swallow- 
ing it. Even sheep and cattle show^ great 
fondness for salt, and will lick lumps of it with 
great relish. A small proportion of salt is sup- 
posed to assist the dissolution of food in the 
stomach, besides giving a taste to things of 
themselves insipid. The warm aromatic veg- 
etables, such as mustard, horse-radish, pepper, 
and other spices, are useful in correcting the 
cold and windy nature of certain foods, and im- 
part vigor to the stomach. It seems extraordi- 
nary, that the natives of the hottest climates 
are most fond of spices, w hich they mix in such 
quantities Vv ith their food, as would absolutely 
fire the mouth and throat of one unaccustomed 
to them. This is owing to the relaxing power 
of heat, which renders the strongest stimulants 
necessary to rouse the languid organs to exer- 
tion. * The Greenlander and Samoiede, on the 
other hand, think train oil the finest of all sau- 
ces to their dried fish or flesh, and are able ta 



85 

digest a full meal of whale's fat. Thus nature 
suits her gifts to the several necessities of her 
thildren. Farewell ! 



86 



^ LETTER IX. 

On the Arts relative to Clothing. 

My Dear Boy,— I am now to introduce 
you to another division of the arts of life, the 
necessity of which you will not question — those 
by which man provides himself with that cov- 
ering for his body with which nature has neg- 
lected to furnish him. This necessity, indeed, 
is less universal than that for procuring food ; 
since there are climates in which clothing is 
scarcely requisite, except as far as the purposes 
of decency demand. Within the tropics, the 
black colour of the natives, and the natural oili- 
ness of their skins, increased by the use of un- 
guents and paint, sufficiently protect them 
against the ordinary inclemencies of the weath- 
er. Yet, even in those countries, the practice 
of going entirely naked is a sign of a state lit- 
tle advanced beyond the savage : and some 
kind of apparel is usually worn, at least by the 
superior classes. In all the cold and temper- 
ate parts of the globe, the want of clothing be- 



87 



gins at the instant of birth, and is one of the 
most argent. 

The first covering to the body in warm cli- 
matest^may probably have been the large leaves 
of trees fastened together by the fibres of tlie 
same ; but this must have been so slight and lit- 
tle durable, as soon to be set aside for better 
contrivances. To interweave the long and nar- 
row leaves of plants of the grass or reed tribe in 
the form of a mat would be a pretty obvious ex 
pedient ; and to this day, we find, that some 
savage tribes have proceeded no farther. Yet, 
simple as this contrivance may seem, it is the 
origin of the art of weaving. A kind of cloth- 
ing still more simple probably occurred to the 
inhabitants of colder countries, namely, the 
skins of slain animals, those very coverings be- 
stowed by nature upon them, and denied to 
man. The savage hunter, who had killed a 
bear, at the same time made a display of his 
prowess, and enjoyed the reward of it, by wrap- 
ping round him the shaggy spoils of his game. 
You have read, perhaps, of the lion's skin of the 
renowned Hercules, which, with his club, is all 
the furniture usually given by painters and 
sculptors to this ancient hero. At this day, a 



88 



sheep, s skin, with the fleece outwards in sum- 
mer, and inwards in w^inter, forms the principal 
garment of some northern people ; and I have 
read of a very simple and compendious mode of 
clothing a young Tartar, by throwing over his 
shoulders the raw hide of a horse, and shaping 
it to his body with a pair of sheers. Clothing, 
as well as food, may therefore be divided 
into the vegetable and animal ; and I shall 
follow this order in the account I am going ta 
give you of the several materials of dress in use 
among more civilized nations. 

The vegetable matters employed for this pur- 
pose are chiefly of two kinds ; the fibres of the 
stalks and other parts of plants, and the downy 
substance in which the seeds are sometimes 
bedded. The fibrous or stringy texture is very 
prevalent in vegetables. We see it in the bark 
and wood of trees, in the stalks of green or her- 
baceous plants, and in the leaves of all. The 
longer parallel fibres are held together by shor- 
ter cross ones, forming a net-work, cemented 
by a glutinous matter. The ingenious, though 
bat half-civilized people of Otaheite, have dis- 
covered a method of making tolerable cloth of 
the inner bark of certain trees, steeped in water. 



89 



then beaten with a wooden mallet, and reduced 
to a soft pliable texture, much resembling, in 
appearance, woven cloth, though the fibres are 
never entirely separated. But this manufac- 
ture has the defect of not bearing to be washed, 
and is besides of little derability. The more 
artful way of employing vegetable fibres con- 
sists in an entire separation of them from the 
matter that held them together, reducing them 
to clean loose bundles, then twisting them into 
threads, and lastly interweaving them. I shall 
describe these operations presently. 

The plants selected in our parts of the world 
for the purpose of making thread and cloth from 
their fibres, are chiefly flax and hemp. 

Flax(m Latin, linum^ whence the word linen) 
is an annual plant, rising on a single stalk to a 
moderate height, and crowned with handsome 
blue flowers, succeeded by globular seed-vessels. 
It is cultivated more or less in most of the coun- 
tries of Europe, and succeeds, best in a strong 
loamy soil, with a good deal of moisture. It is 
suffered to grow till the seeds are ripe, and is 
then plucked up by the hand, laid in little bun- 
dles to dry, deprived of its seed-vessels, and 
then put into pits of water to rot. The purpose 



^ 



90 



of this part of the process is to dissolve a gum- 
my or mucilaginous matter, which holds the 
fibres together. It is the most disagreeable 
thing belonging to the management of flax, 
since the smell arising from it while rotting is 
extremely offensive and prejudicial to the health,, 
and the infected water is apt to kill the fish 
which swim in it. When the flax has lain long 
enough, it is taken out, washed, dried, then bea- 
ten with mallets, combed, and by various other 
operations so prepared, that the long fibres are 
got by themselves, clean and loose, in which 
state they are shining, soft to the touch, yet 
strong. It is this which the manufacturers call 
flax : the shorter and coarser fibres, separated 
by the comb, are called tow. The staple of flax 
is longer or shorter, coarser or finer, according 
to the soil in which it is grown, and the methods 
used in dressing it. The operation of spinning, 
which it next undergoes, consists in drawing 
out, with the fingers, several of the fibres togeth- 
er, and twisting them. This was originally 
done by means of a distafl', or rock, on which 
the flax was fastened, and which was stuck in 
the girdle,while one hand of the sqinner was oc- 
cupied in drawing out and twisting the thread 



91 



and the other in winding it upon a reel or spin- 
dle. But this method has long given way to 
the use of a simple machine called a wheel, in 
which the twisting and winding are performed 
by means of a wheel turned by a treadle. Spin- 
ning has been a part of the domestic occupation 
of women from the earliest ages ; and, notwith- 
standing the modern use of compound machin- 
ery, the spinning of flax is usually performed by 
them at home in the old way. The spinning- 
wheel is a pleasing object in cottage-scenery ; 
and it is desirable that some employments should 
be reserved in a simple state, which may fill 
up the vacant hours of rural life, and offer some 
reward to humble industry, The product of 
spinning is thread, which is more or less fine ac- 
cording to the dexterity of the spinner, and the 
nature of the material. Some thread closer 
twisted than the rest is kept for needle-work ; 
but the greater part is made up in bundles call- 
ed linen-yarn, and committed to the weaver. 

I know not how, by verbal description, to 
give you any clear ideas of that common engine, 
the loom ; and you may learn more from five 
minutes opservation in a weaver's shop, than 
all my pains in writing can teach you, A few 



92 



words to give you a general notion of the art 
may, however, not be thrown away. I have al- 
ready told you, that weaving may be regarded 
as a jfiner kind of matting. To perform it, the 
threads, which form the length of a piece of 
cloth, are first disposed in order, and strained 
by weights to a proper tightness ; and this is call- 
ed the loarp. These threads are divided, by an 
instrument called a reed, into two sets, each 
composed of every other thread ; and while, by 
the working of a treadle, each set is thrown alter- 
nately up and down, the cross threads, called 
the woof ox weftj are inserted between them, by 
means of a little instrument, sharp at both ends, 
called a shuttle, which is briskly shot from one 
of the weaver^s hands to the other, placed on 
the opposite sides of the work, and carries the 
thread with it. This is the simplest kind of 
weaving ; but numbc^rless are the additional 
contrivances made for all the curious works 
wrought in the loom, which have been the op- 
jects of human ingenuity for many ages. 

The linen fabrics are of all degrees of fine- 
ness, from coarse sheeting, to cambric almost 
emulating a spider's web. They are brought 
to that extreme whiteness, which we so much 



9J 



admire, by the process of bleaching. This con- 
sists in their exposure to the action of the sun 
and air, with frequent watering, and often with 
the help of some acid liquor, w hich quickens 
the operation, but is apt to injure the cloth, if 
not applied with great caution. The value that 
can be given to a raw material by manufactur- 
ing is in few instances more strikingly exempli- 
fied than in the conversion of flax into point, or 
Brussels lace, some of which sells for several 
guineas a yard. Indeed, if you look at a plant 
of flax growing, and then at the frill of your 
shirt, you cannot fail to be struck with admira- 
tion of human skill and industry. 

Linen is one of the comforts of civilized life. 
It is cooler and more cleanly than any other 
wearing material, as it is free from downiness, 
and presents a smooth surface. We therefore 
prefer linen for our under garment ; but it w^ould 
be too cold for our climate did we not cover it 
with others of a warmer texture. Linen in 
Europe, is a luxury of the later ages ; for though 
we read of the fine linens of Egypt in early 
times, it is certain that the polished Greeks and 
Romans did not commonly use garments of this 
material. Thus it has been remarked of Au- 



!)4 



gustus, the master of the Roman world, that he 
had not a shirt to his back. Linen when worn 
to rags, has still a considerable value ; for the 
finest writing and printing paper is made from 
it. But paper-making is an art which does not 
yet come within the scope of my Letters. 

Hemp is a much taller and stronger plant 
than flax. It has a square rough stalk, rising 
to the height of five or six feet, and sending off 
branches. It is an annual plant produced from 
seed. The yovmg ones come up, some male, 
some female ; the former furnished only with 
flowers producing a farina or dust ; the latter 
yielding the seed. Hemp thrives best in a rich 
moist soil, especially on the banks of rivers ; 
and it prefers the temprate climates to the hot. 
When come to maturity, it is plucked up and 
laid to rot like flax. Its fibrous part consists 
in the bark surrounding the main stalk, within 
which is a hard woody part, of no use. It is 
therefore necessary either to strip off the bark^ 
or, by hard beating, to convert the inner matter 
to a dust which may fly away. Hemp under- 
goes the same general preparation as flax be- 
fore it is consigned to the weaver ; but, being 
of a stronger and coarser texture, it requires 



93 



nore labour to get the fine fibres separate from 
the rest. Hence it is commonly employed in 
the more homely manufactures, and hempen 
cloth is seldom made finer than to serve for 
sheeting and shirts for the lower classes. It is 
the principal material of sail-cloth, a fabric the 
strength of which is required to be proportion- 
al to the violence it has to undergo from storms 
and tempests. 

Hemp is rendered still more important to 
navigation from its use in making cordage. For 
this purpose, it is taken nearly in a raw state, 
and twisted first into coarse twine, which is 
afterwards united to make rope ; and several 
ropes twisted together go to form a cable, of 
strength and thickness sefficient to hold the 
largest man of war at her anchors. The con- 
sumption of hemp in a maratime nation like this 
is prodigious, on which account vast stores of 
it are constantly laid up in our naval arsenals. 
But we are now got beyond our proposed sub- 
ject of materials for clothing, so it is time to 
put an end to my Letter. 

Your affectionate, &c. 



96 



LETTER X. 

Vegetable clothing. Continued. 

You have seen, my dear boy, that the mhab- 
itant of the northern and temperate regions has 
been obliged to exercise much labour and con- 
trivance in procuring his vegetable clothing 
from the stalks of plants. In the meantime the 
native of the fruitful south has been enjoying 
the benefit of a material presented in greater 
abundance, and in a state requiring much less 
preparation before it is fitted for the manufac- 
turer. This is cotton^ a white woolly substance 
contained in the seed pod of a family of plants, 
some of which are annual and herbaceous, oth- 
ers perennial and shrubby. The cotton-tree, 
or plant, is probably a native of the w arm re- 
gions of Asia, in which it has from time imme- 
morial served to clothe multitudes of people. 
In the southern parts of Persia the shrubby 
kinds grow wild. But the cultivated cotton, 
both in the East and West Indies, in Lesser 
Asia, and in some of the warmer climates of 



97 

Europe, is generally the herbaceous sort, pro- 
duced from seed. Its culture is easy, and any 
soil suits it when once it has taken good root. 
In the West Indies two crops of cotton are 
gathered in a year. The pods, when ripe, 
open of themselves and the cotton is plucked 
out of them by the fingers, with the seeds stick- 
ing to it. these are separated by means of 
mills which pull out and loosen the down. It is 
then in a state fit to be sent from the planter to 
the manufacturer. The farther operations it 
undergoes are picking clean, carding, and rov- 
ing, which last brings off the fibres longitudi- 
nally in a continued loose line. These are 
next twisted and drawn out, so as to make thread, 
or yarn ; and the material is then consigned to 
the weaver. The vast extension of the cotton 
manufacture in this country has caused these 
preparatory operations to be performed hy a 
system of complex machinery, the invention of 
which has exercised all the ingenuity of the 
ablest mechanics. Dr. Darwin, in his " Bo- 
tanic Garden," has given a highly poetical de- 
scription of one of these cotton-spinning ma- 
chines established on the bank of the Derwent 
in Derbyshire by the inventor, the late Sir 



98 



Richard Arkwright. I shall treat you with 
some of the lines, in which you may admire the 
life and animation which he has given to a 
mere piece of machinery. But you should first 
read the explanation in prose. 

''The cotton-wool is first picked by women 
from the pods and seeds (those^ probably,which 
are left after the rough separation in the coun- 
try w^here it grows). It is then carded hj cyl- 
indrical cards, which move against each other 
with different velocities. It is taken from 
these by an iron-hand, or comb, which has a 
motion similar to that of scratching, and takes 
the wool off the cards longitudinally in respect 
to the fibres, or staple, producing a continued 
line loosely cohering, called the rove or roving. 
This rove, yet very loosely twisted, is then re- 
ceived or drawn into a whirling -canister, and is 
rolled by the centrifugal force in spiral lines 
within it, being yet too tender for the spindle. 
It is then passed between ^2t^0|?mr o/'/o/Zer^ .' 
the second pair moving faster than the first el- 
ongate the thread with greater equality than 
can be done by the hand. It is then twisted 
on poles or bobbins.'' Now for the lines : — 



99 



«* First with nice eye emerging naiads cull 

From leathery pods the vegetable wool ; 

With wiry teeth revolving cards release 

The tangled knots, and swooth the ravell'd fleece: 

Next moves the iron-hand with lingers fine, 

Combs the wide card, and forms th' eternal line ; 

Slow, with soft lips, the whirling can acquires 

The tender skains, and wraps in rising spires ; 

With quicken'd pace successive rollers move, 

And these retain, and those extend, the rove ; 

Then fly the spoles, the rapid axles glow ; 

And slowly circumvolves the lab'ring wheel below." 

The fabrics made from cotton are probably 
more various and numerous than from any other 
material. They comprehend stuffs of all de- 
grees of fineness, from the transparent muslin 
of a robe, or a turban, to the thick plush and 
warm bed-quilt. The commerce of Great Brit- 
ain has of late years been peculiarly indebted to 
the cotton manufactory, which produces cloth- 
ing for people of all ranks, from Russia to Guin- 
ea, and unites elegance with cheapness in an 
unrivalled degree. Great quantities of the na- 
tive fabrics of the East are also imported into 
Europe, Some of these, by the advantage of 
an excellent material, and incomparable manual 
dexterity and patience in the workmen, though 
made with very simple machinery, surpass in 
fineness and beauty any thing of European man- 
7 



100 

ufactory. The natives are said to perform their 
finest work in moist cool places under ground, 
which makes the cotton hold together so as to 
draw out to the thinest threads ; and the soft 
and delicate fingers of the Indian women give 
them the sense of feeling to a degree of nicety 
much beyond that of our common people. 

It is probable, that cotton, at present, clothes 
more people in the world than any other sub- 
stance. Its peculiar advantage, besides cheap- 
ness, is the union of warmth wilh lightness, 
whence it is fitted for a great variety of cli- 
mates. To the hot, it is better adapted than 
linen, on account of its absorbing quality, which 
keeps the skin dry and comfortable. The 
woolliness of cotton gives a kind of nap to the 
cloths made of it, which renders them soft to 
the touch, but apt to attract dust. In the fine 
muslins this is burned off, by passing them be- 
tween heated cylinders, with such velocity as 
not to take fire, which you may conceive, con- 
sidering the combustibility of cotton, to be a 
very nice operation. A readiness to catch fire 
is, indeed, a dangerous quality of this material, 
and many fatal accidents have arisen from it 
since the prevaihng use of muslins in women's 



101 

dress. Much mischief has also proceeded from 
colds taken in these delicate garments, which 
are by no means fitted to protect the wearers 
from the inclemencies of our variable climate. 

The downy matter surrounding the seeds in 
some other plants has been employed for the 
same purpose as cotton, and by proper prepara- 
tion has, in some instances, succeeded very 
well ; but, in most cases, it is too brittle, or of 
too short a staple, to be used wdth advantage in 
the form of thread. It has, however, afforded 
an useful material for stuffing beds and pillows, 
and for quilting. In this way the down of a 
plant growing copiously upon some of our bogs, 
called cotton-grass, has been employed by the 
neighbouring poor. 

Having nothing farther to add on vegetable 
materials for clothing, I shall conclude my 
Letter. 

Your affectionate friend. 



102 

LETTER XL 

On Clothing Derived from Animals. 

My Dear Boy.— I have already suggested, 
that one of the earliest notions of clothing was 
propably that of a simple transfer of the cover- 
ing of an animal to a human body. For this 
purpose, some animal well furnished with wool 
or hair would be fixed upon, and the hide would 
first be used in its natural state, that is, with the 
hair growing to the skin. In this state many are 
stillusedby the inhabitants of cold countries, both 
savage and civilized ; and the elegant coverings 
of some of the smaller quadrupeds preserved in 
this condition, under the name oifurs^ make 
the most costly dresses of courts, and serve for 
distinctions of civil dignities. The fur of a 
black fox is a princely ornament in the North ; 
and in our own country, the robes of royalty, no- 
bility, and justice, are decorated with the spot- 
less ermine. 

In the hide of an animal, the hair and skin, 
however are two entirely distinct thing, and are 
10 be considered separately as materials for 



103 



clothing. The skin is the proper integument 
of the body, serving to hold its parts together, 
and proftect them from external injury. It is a 
moderately thick, tough menbrane, elastic, ex- 
tensible, and impenatrable to fluids. The hairs 
spring from roots just beneath the skin, pass 
through, and are strongly attached to it. The 
bodies of most quadrupeds are nearly covered 
all over with hairs, but they differ much in fine- 
ness and closeness. It is chiefly the smaller 
species which are provided with those soft, 
thick, glossy coverings that bear the name of fur^ 
and they are found in the greatest perfection 
where they are most wanted, that is, in the cold- 
est countries. They form the riches of those 
dreary wastes which produce nothing else for 
human use ; and their value has tempted men 
to expose themselves to the utmost hardships of 
cold and hunger while pursuing the chase amid 
perpetual frost and snow. 

Many of the animals most esteemed for their 
fur are of the weasel kind : of these are the 
glutton, the martin, the sable, and the ermine. 
An amphibious quadruped called the sea otter, 
frequenting the islands between Asia and Amer- 
ica, and the north-western coast of the latter 

7+ 



104 

continent, has lately been in great request for 
its fur, which bears a high price in China, 
The principal countries for the production of 
furs are the solitary wilds of Siberia, and the im- 
measureable forests of North America, 



-There, beneath the shining waste. 



The furry nations harbour : tipt with jet, 
Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press ; 
Sables of glossy black ; and dark embrown'd. 
Or beauteous freak'd with many a mingled hue. 
Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts. Thompson. 

Fur is used either growing to the skin, or sep- 
arated from it. In the first case it is necessary 
to preserve the skin from decaying or putrefy- 
ing. This, in the smaller furs, is easily effec- 
ted by first cleansing them well, and then hang- 
ing them to dry in the wind. The larger are 
besides dressed with some astringent powder on 
the inside. Furs in this state are most com- 
monly used for the lining or facing of garments, 
and are sewn on to the other material in slips 
or patches. 

Fur, in its detached state, is usually employ- 
ed in making astuff'called/^/f. The operation 
oi felting depends upon a peculiarity of struc- 
ture, which, however smooth and uniform they 
may seem to the eye, have in reality a scaly 



105 

or tiled texture on the surface. The scales are so 
disposed, that they make no resistance to the finger 
drawn along the hair from the root to the point, 
but cause a roughness and resistance in a contrary 
direction. From this property, hairs,when beaten 
or pressed together, are disposed to catch hold of 
and twist round each other, and thus to cohere into 
a mass. 1 1 is in the manufacture of hats that felting 
is chiefly practiced. The fur used for this purpose 
is that of the beaver, the rabbit, and the hare. This 
consists of two sorts of hair, along stiff kind, with 
a short, close, soft down beneath. It is the latter 
which alone is used in felting. Wool is like- 
wise employed in the coarser sorts of felt, and it has 
the particular advantage of being naturally so bent 
and curled, that each hair takes ready and firm hold 
of its neighbour. Wool, before felting, is well 
cleansed of oil and grease, and is cut into small 
lengths. The fur or wool is then carded ; af- 
ter which, a proper quantity of is is laid upon 
a square table, having chinks cut through it 
lengthwise. The workman now takes an in- 
strument called a bow, which is like a fiddle- 
stick, but much larger ; and with the string of 
this he strikes upon the material, making all 
the hairs successively fly up and mix together 



106 

while the dust and refuse pass away through the 
chmks of the table. After he has, by this op^ 
eration, worked the material into an equal and 
consistent layer, he covers it with a cloth or 
leather, which he presses with his hands m diff- 
erent directions, so as to render the texture of 
the stuff beneath firmer and closer, and cause 
the hairs to take stronger hold of each other^ 
He then lays the stuff upon an iron plate^ 
slightly heated by afire beneath, sprinkles it 
with water, applies a kind of mould upon it, andi 
thus, by heat and pressure, it becomes a hairy 
felt, though as yet but of a loose texture. A 
number of other operations are to be perform- 
ed before it acquires the firmness which you 
find in a hat ; particularly stiffening it by means 
of glue or gum ; but it is not my purpose to give 
you an accurate description of this manufacture. 
It is enough if you comprehend in general ho\\r 
the detached hair of tur or wool is made to co- 
here into a firm stuff, merely by intermingling. 

The longer hairs of animals are employed in 
making woven stuffs of various kinds ; but I 
shall reserve what I have to say of these till 1 
have given you an account of the w oollen man- 
ufactory. This will form the subject of my next 
Letter. For the present, adieu ! 



107 

LETTER XII. 

On the Wollen Manufactory^ 

Of all the materials for clothing afforded by 
animals, the wool of the sheep has been prefer- 
ed by the greatest number of people in all ages. 
This useful and innocent creature has been do- 
mesticated in all the climates of the globe be- 
tween the extremes of heat and cold ; and in 
all it has not only bestowed upon man its flesh 
for his nourishment, but its fleece for his cover- 
ing. The skin, with the wool growing to it, 
has been the dress only of savages, or of tribes 
little advanced beyond them. Wherever civil- 
ization has prevailed, the wool, plucked off or 
sheared from the skin, has been employed as a 
material for the fabrication of clothes of differ- 
ent kinds. This wool, you know, may be ta- 
ken from the living animal at the approach of 
summer, without hurting it, and is annually 
renewed. Sheep-shearing is one of the most 
interesting of the rural occupations, and has af- 
forded a subject of pleasing descriptions to sev- 
eral poets, particularly to Dyer, whose princi- 
pal poem is entitled The Fleece. 

n 



108 



Wool differs from common hair in being more 
soft and supple, and more disposed to cm^I. 
These properties it owes to a degree of mictu- 
osity, or greasiness, which is with difficulty 
separated from it. Its qualities, in respect to 
fineness, length of staple, colour, &c. differ 
greatly in different breeds of sheep, and even 
in different parts of the same fleece. Peculiar 
attention has been paid to the selecting of such 
breeds as yield the best wool for different pur- 
poses, and treating the animal so as to improve 
it to the highest possible degree. The Spanish 
wool is allowed to be the finest that Europe af- 
fords. Probably some of the English kinds ex- 
cel all others in length of flake. There is, in- 
deed, no kind of wool, of which very good sam- 
ples are not to be found in this island for now 
here have more pains been taken to vary and 
improve the breeds of sheep. The whole wool 
as taken from the animal's body, is called a 
fleece. The first operation this undergoes is 
that of picking and sorting into the different 
kinds of wool of which it is composed. These 
are next to be cleansed from marks and stains, 
and freed from their offensive greasiness. The 
practice of using tar in marking sheep, and also 



109 



in dressing their sores, is the cause of the waste 
of much wool, from the difficulty of getting it 
out again, and should therefore be avoided as 
much as possible. When the wool is cleansed, it 
is delivered to the wool-comber, who, by means 
of iron spiked combs of different fineness, draws 
out the fibres, smooths and straightens them, 
separates the refuse, and brings it into a state 
fit for the spinner. In his operations he is 
obliged to use a good deal of oil, which is after- 
wards to be washed out. The spinner forms 
the wool into threads, which are more or less 
twisted, accordtng to the manufacture for which 
they are designed. The more twisted is called 
ivorsted, the looser, yarn. 

The kinds of stuffs made wholly or partly of 
wool are extremely various ; and Great Britain 
produces more of them, and in general of bet- 
er quality, than any other country in Europe. 
Our broad cloths form the principal article of 
the dress of men of the superior classes ; and a 
more perfect manufacture, with respect to beau- 
ty and utility, cannot easily be conceived. The 
threads in it are so concealed by a fine nap or 
down raised on the surface, and curiously 
smoothed and glossed, that it looks more like a 



110 



ncii texture of nature's forming, than the work 
of the weaver. It is to be observed, that wool 
in common with other animal substances, takes 
a dye better than any vegetable matters. Our 
cloths are therefore made of every hue that can 
be desired ; but, in order to fit them for the dyer, 
they must be first freed from all greasiness and 
foulness. This is done by the operation offuU- 
ingj in which the clothes are beaten by heavy 
mallets as they lie in water, with which a 
quantity of clayey earth has been mixed. The 
best earth for this purpose is called fuller's 
earth, of which there are pits in several parts 
of this Country. It unites with the greasy 
matter, and renders it soluble in water ; so 
that, by continually supplying fresh streams 
while the beating is going on, all the foulness 
is at length carried off. You have probably 
seen fuller's-earth employed in a small way, in 
getting the grease-spots out of your clothes. 
The operation of fulling has the farther effect 
of thickening the cloth, and rendering it more 
firm and compact, by mixing the threads with 
each other, something in the manner of a felt. 
The cloths of inferior fineness are mostly 
called narrow cloths, and are made of all qual- 



Ill 

ities as to strength and thickness. Some of 
those used for great-coats, by their substance 
and shagginess, resemble the original fleece, or 
rather the fur of a bear, and render unnecessary 
the use of furred garments among us. Indeed, 
with the single material of wool, art has been 
able much better to suit the different wants of 
man in his clothing, than can be done by all 
the productions of nature. What could be so 
comfortable for our beds as blankets ? What so 
warm, and at the same time so light, for pain- 
ed and palsied limbs, as flannel ? The several 
kinds of the worsted manufacture are excel- 
lent for that elacticity, which makes them sit 
close to a part without impeding its motions. 
This quality is particularly observable in stock- 
ings, of which article of dress, most of those 
worn by the inferior classes, and, in winter, by 
the superior, are made of worsted. The making 
of these by simple machinery of knitting is, vou 
know, a common domestic manuiacture. In 
the large way they are wrought by a curious 
engine, called a frame. Even the thinnest of 
the woolen fabrics possess a considerable de- 
gree of warmth, as appears in those very deli- 
cate cloths called shawls. The real shawls are 



112 

made of the line wool of Tibet, in the eastern 
part of Asia, and are sold at higher prices than 
almost any other wearing manufacture. They 
have, however, been well imitated by the pro- 
duct of some of our English looms. A very 
different article made of wool, yet equally ap- 
propriated to luxury, is carpeting. This is 
rather clothing for our floors than ourselves, 
but our feet receive the benefit of its warmth. 
In the East, soft carpeting is placed all round 
the room, upon which the natives recline or sit 
cross-legged, instead of using chairs ; and the 
beauty and richness of their carpets is a prin- 
cipal part of their domestic finery. 

It has already been remarked, that the use 
of linen or cotton garments next to the skin, in- 
stead of woollen, is an improvement, since 
wool has always somewhat of a fretting, irrita- 
ting quality, causing itching and eruptions. 
Hence it should never touch naked wounds or 
sores. In cold and damp countries, indeed, 
flannel keeps up an equable w armth and dry- 
ness, which is very salutary ; and, on that ac- 
count, it has been much recommended for del- 
icate constitutions. Upon the whole, Dyer's 
praise of wool seems to have a just foundation. 
Speaking of materials for clothing, he says, 



iwil 



113 



Stiil sliall o'er all pi-e\^ail the shepherd's stores, 
For num'rous uses know : none yield such warmth 
Such beauteous hues receive, so long endure : 
So pliant to the loom, so various, none. 

So much for the woollen manufacture, the 
importance of which renders it a subject suffi- 
cient for a single Letter. You shall shortly 
hear from me again : meantime, farewell ! 



r 



114 



LETTER XIII. 

Animal Clothings Continued — Silk. 

My Dear Boy. — I have already hinted, 
that the hah' of other animals besides the sheep 
has afforded a material for woven stuffs em- 
ployed in clothing. Those quadrupeds in South 
America, called by the names of glama, vicuna, 
and paco, and which modern naturalists rank 
with the camel, though much smaller, are cov- 
ered with a wool resembling that of the sheep, 
and applied to the same purpose. Of these, 
Dr. Shaw says, that " the vicuna seems to afford 
the finest wool of any, and is wrought into cloths 
of most exquisite silky softness and beauty, 
which are said to be too warm for common 
wear, unless made peculiarly thin.'' If this 
were procurable in any quantity, it might be a 
valuable article in our northern climates, where 
we should probably have no reason to complain 
of its warmth in winter. 

The Angora goat is covered with hair of re- 
markable beauty. It is milk white glossy, and 



115 

formed into long spiral ringlets. Such a prom- 
ising material would not long be overlooked ; 
accordingly we find that it has given rise to the 
manufacture of the finest camlets, and other 
stuffs, for which that district in Lesser Asia is no- 
ted, the hair of the camel is also woven into stuffs 
for various purposes. Hair-cloths, indeed are 
made from long hair of any kind ; but these in 
general, are too harsh and rough for clothing, 
and are employed in other services. I suppose 
it will not much recommend this manufacture 
to you to be told, that some superstitious peo- 
ple, who fancied that tormenting themselves in 
this world would entitle them to the favour of 
their Maker in another, have though it a good 
expedient to wear hair-cloth shirts. 

Men must have been far advanced in civiliz- 
ation, and the observation of nature, before 
they found out a material for clothing in the 
labours of a caterpillar. China, one of the old- 
est-peopled countries of the globe, and in 
which the arts of life have longest arrived at a 
high degree of perfection appears to have been 
the first to make use of the web spun by the 
silkworm. This creature, which, in its perfect 
state, is a kind of moth is hatched from the e^^, 



n' 



116 

in the form of a caterpillar, and passes from 
that state successively to those of a nymph or 
chrysalis, and of a winged insect. While a cat- 
erpillar, it eats voraciously, its proper and f; 
vourite food being the leaves of the differelf 
species of mulberry. By this diet it is not on 
nourished, but is enabled to lay up, in recept;. 
cles within its body formed for the purpose, ■ 
kind of transparent glue which has the prope 
ty of hardening as soon as it comes into tli; 
air. When arrived at full maturity, it spins ii 
self a web out of this gluey matter, withi: 
which it is to lie safe and concealed during it!^ 
transformation into the helpless and motionles 
state of a chrysalis. 

I shall here step out of my way to remark 
that there is not in nature a more striking ex- 
ample of what is called instinct in animals, thai 
this fact of the web spun by most of the cater- 
pillar tribe. By instinct is meant an impulse 
to actions, of which the end or purpose is not. 
foreseen by the performer, and which are notr 
the consequence of instruction or imitation. 
Now, the caterpillar has never been taught by 
a parent, since it is not hatched from the egg 
till many months after all of its species are 



117 



dead. Nor can it possibly, without the gift of 
prophecy, discern any use in spinning itself a 
temporary tomb, which it is to occupy under a 
lew state of being. It works, therefore, in 
-consequence of a blind impulse directing its 
plan and motions, for which we have no other 
name than that of an instinct : and I do not see 
how philosophers can refuse to admit the reali- 
ty of such a principle, how much soever they 
may be puzzled to account for it. 

To return to our subject The silkworm's 

web is an oval ball, called a cocoon, of a hue 
varying from light straw colour to full yellow, 
and consisting of a single thread wound round 
and round, so as to make a close and impene- 
trable covering. The thread is so very fine, 
that, when unravelled, it has been measured to 
700 or 1000 feet, all rolled within the compass 
of a crow's or pigeon's egg. In a state of nature, 
the silkworm makes its cocoon upon the mul- 
berry-tree itself, where it shines like a golden 
fruit among the leaves ; and in the southern 
parts of China, and other warm countries of the 
East, it is still suffered to do so, the cocoons 
bemg gathered from the trees without farther 
trouble. But in even the warmest climates of 

8 



118 



Europe, the inclemencies of the weather in 
spring, when the worms hatched, will not per- 
mit the rearing them in the open air. They 
are kept in warm but airy rooms, constructed 
for the purpose ; and are regularly fed with mul- 
berry leaves till the period of their full growth. 
It is a matter of nicety to keep back the hatch- 
ing of the eggs till the season is far advanced, 
to aiford mulberry leaves. As this tree is one 
of the latest in leafing, silkworms cannot advan- 
tageously be reared in cold climates. During 
their growth, they several times shed their skins, 
and many die under this operation. At length 
they become so full of the silky matter, that it 
gives them a yellowish tinge, and they cease 
to eat. Twigs are then presented to them up- 
on little stages of wickerwork, on w hich they 
immediately begin to form their webs. When 
the cocoons are finished, a small number, reserv- 
ed for breeding, are suffered to eat their way out 
in their butterfly state : the rest are killed in 
the chrysalis state, by exposing the cocoons to 
the heat of an oven. 

The next business is to wind off the silk. 
After separating a downy matter from the out- 
side of the cocoon, cnWed Jloss^ they are thrown 



119 

into warm water ; and the ends of the threads 
bemg found, several are joined together, and 
wound in a single one upon a reel. This is 
the silk in its natural state, called raw silk. It 
next undergoes some operations to cleanse and 
render it more supple ; after which it is made 
into what is called organzine^ or thrown silk, 
being twisted into thread of such different de- 
grees of fineness as are wanted in the different 
manufactures. This is done in the large way 
by mills of curious construction, which turn at 
once a vast number of spindles, and perform at 
the same time the processes of unwinding, twist- 
ing, reeling, &c. The largest and most compli- 
cated machine for this purpose, in England, is 
at Derby, the model of which was clandestinely 
brought from Italy, in which country all the 
branches of the silk manufacture have long flour- 
ished. 

The excellence of silk, as a material, consists 
in its strength, lightness, lustre, and readiness 
in taking dyes. It is likewise very little apt to 
be preyed upon by insects. When little known 
in Europe, it was highly prized for its rarity ; 
it is now esteemed for its real beauty, and other 
valuable qualities. As it can never be produced 

8^ 



120 



in great abundance, it must always be a dear 
article of clothing. Silkworms are reared 
from China quite through all the warm and tem- 
perate climates of Asia, and in the southern 
parts of Europe. France is the most northern 
country in which silk is produced in any quan- 
tity. In England, though silkworms are bred 
without much difficulty, by way of experiment 
yet the dearness of labour prevents the produc- 
tion of silk from being an object of profit. 
What is used in our manufactures comes chief- 
ly from China, Persia, and Lesser Asia, in a 
raw state, or from Italy in that of organzine. 
The fabrics of silk are very numerous, and al- 
most all devoted to the purposes of show and 
luxury. In thickness they vary from the finest 
gauze, to velvet, the pile of which renders it as 
close and warm as a fur. Some of the most 
beautiful of the silk manufactures are the glos- 
sy satin ; the elegant damask, of which the 
flowers are of the same hue with the piece, 
and only show themselves from the difference 
of shade ; the rich brocade, in which flowers of 
natural colours, or of gold and silver thread are 
interwoven ; and the infinitely varied ribands. 
It is also a common material for stockings, 



121 



gloves, buttons, strings, &c., in which its dura- 
bility almost compensates for its dearness* 
Much is used for the purposes of sewing, no 
other thread approaching it in strength. Silk, 
in short, bears the same superiority among 
clothing materials, that gold does among metals : 
it gives an appearance of richness wherever it 
is employed, and confers a real value. Even 
the refuse of silk is carefully collected, and 
serves for useful purposes. The down about 
the cocoons, and the waste separated in the 
operations raw silk undergoes, are spun into 
a coarser thread, of which very servicible stock- 
ings are made. The interior part of the cocoon 
is reckoned to be the best material for making 
artificial flowers. 

As I have mentioned that the greatest part 
of the caterpillar tribe spin themselves similar 
webs, you will, perhaps, wonder that none of 
these have been employed like that of the silk- 
worm. Some trials have, in fact, been made ; 
but these other insect webs have all either prov- 
ed inferior in quality to the true silk, or cannot 
be procured in quantity sufficient to render them 
an object of attention. But you will be surpris- 
ed to be told, that the product of a shell fish, 

8t 



122 

residing at the bottom of the sea, is actually 
employed for the same purposes. 1 This is a 
species of large muscle, called pinna marina^ 
found on the coasts of Naples, Sicily, Minorca 
and other islands of those seas, which, by 
means of some wonderfulxontrivance of nature, 
has the faculty of spinning from its body certain 
fine brown threads, by which it fastens its shell 
firmly to the rocks. These threads collected 
form a remarkably fine kind of silk, of which 
stockings, gloves, and other articles in small 
quantities, are manufactured by the people on 
those shores. 



123 



LETTER XIV, 

The Manufacture of Leather. 

You remember^ that, on first mentioning the 
hide of animals as a material of clothing, I dis- 
tinguished between the covering of the skin, 
and the skin itself. Having now^ gone through 
the principal uses made of the former, I proceed 
to give you some acquaintance with the meth- 
ods employed to render the latter useful. The 
nature of this integument of the body I have al- 
ready described to you ; and it is not to be won- 
dered at that men should soon have sought an 
additional garment, in that substance by which 
they found their own bodies naturally protected. 
The tough hide of the wild beast, which it had 
cost the ancient hero so much pains to pierce, 
would readily suggest itself to him as an ex- 
cellent defence from the blows of other war- 
riors, or from the injuries he might sustain in 
passing through tangled forests or amid rugged 
rocks. The resistance m.ade by the skin in 
hurts and wounds is, indeed, in some animals. 



124 

very surprising. Thus the badger, whose skin 
adheres very loosely to the flesh, can scarcely 
be destroyed by the teeth of the dogs set to 
worry it, but will retain life after undergoing for 
hours the severest baiting. 

The difficulty would, however, immediately 
occur, of preserving the skin stript from the an- 
imal, in a state fit for use. If nothing were 
done to it, like all the other soft parts, it would 
soon grow putrid ; and if this were prevented 
by drying, it would become hard and shrivelled. 
What art, therefore, has attempted in its pre- 
paration, has been to impregnate it with a mat- 
ter capable of preserving it from putrefaction, 
and at the same time to keep it in a state of 
flexibility and suppleness. When this is effect- 
ed, skin becomes leather, — a substance of the 
highest utility, as well in clothing, as for nu- 
merous other purposes. The art of preparing 
leather consists of a variety of processes, some 
of them tedious and complicated. I shall not 
pretend to no more than give you a general no- 
tion of these ; and, first, of the principal ope- 
ration called tanning. 

The hide, taken off* with due care by the 
skinner, is first thrown into a pit with water 



125 

•dloiie, in order to free it from dirt. After lying 
a day or two, it is placed upon a solid half cyl- 
inder of stone, called a beam, where it is clear- 
ed of and adhereing fat or flesh. It is then put 
into a pit, containing a mixture of lime and 
water, in which it is kept about a fortnight. 
The intent of this is to swell and thicken the 
hide, and to loosen the hair. Being now re- 
placed upon the beam, the hair is scraped off; 
and it is next committed to the mastering-pit. 
The contents of this are some animal dung 
(hen's or pigeon's is iireferred,) and water ; and 
its operation is to reduce that thickening which 
the lime had given. After this is effected, it 
is again cleansed on the beam, and is then put 
into the proper tanning liquor, called the coze, 
which is an infusion of coarsely powdered oak- 
bark in water. The bark of the oak, as well 
as every other part of, abounds in a strongly 
astringent matter ; and it is the thorough im- 
pregnation with this which preserves the hide 
from decay or putrefaction. Other vegetable 
astringents will equally serve the purpose, and 
are used in some countries ; but, with us, 
none is found so strong and so plentiful as that 
yielded by the oak. A weather ooze is first 



126 

employed, and the hide is frequently turned 
and worked in it. It is then removed to a 
stronger : and, lastly, into the most powerful, 
with fresh bark : and these different steepings 
take up a considerable time, greater or less, ac- 
cording to the size of the hide and other cir- 
cumstances. When at length it is thought to 
have imbibed enough of the astringent matter, 
the hide is taken out and hung upon a pole to 
drain, after which it is put upon a piece 
of wood with a convex surface called a 
horse^ on which it is stretched, and kept 
smooth and even. Finally it is taken to the 
drying-house^ a covered building with apertures 
for the free admission of air ; and it is there 
hung up till it becomes completely dry ; and 
thus the process of tanning is finished. 

From the tanner, the hide or skin is consign- 
ed to the currier^ whose art is farther necces- 
sary in order to make it perfect leather. He 
first soaks it thoroughly in water, and then places 
it upon a beam made of hard wood, with one; 
side sloping and polished. He lays it withi 
the grain side, or that on which the hair grew,, 
inwards, and the flesh side outwards. He 
then, with a broad two-edged knife, having a 



127 



handle at each end, shaves or pares the hide on 
the latter side, till all its inequalities are re- 
moved, and it is reduced to the degree of thin- 
ness required for use. After this operation it 
is again put into w^ater, then scoured, and rub- 
bed with a polished stone. It is next besmear- 
ed w^ith a kind of oil procured from sheep or 
deerskin, or made by boiling train oil and tal- 
low together ; the intention of which is to soft- 
ten or supple it. A great part of its moisture 
is then evaporated by hanging it up in a drying 
house for some days ; and it is farther dried by 
exposure to the sun, or to the heat of a stoye. 
It is then differently treated, according as it is 
meant to be blacked or stained, or not. With- 
out entering into minute particulars, it is 
enough to observe, that the astringent principle 
with which the leather has been impregnated 
in the tanning, renders nothing necessary ex- 
cept the application of a solution of vitriol of 
iron, at once to strike a deep black. This is 
laid on with a brush, generally on the grain side 
of the leather ; and it afterwards undergoes the 
operation of giving it that roughness which is 
called the grain. This is performed by rub- 
bing it in all directions with a fluted board. 



128 



When leather is blackened on the flesh side, 
the colour is given by a mixture of lamp black 
and oil. 

Is is in the manner above described that 
leather is prepared for the making of shoes and 
boots, which is one of the principle uses of this 
material ; and certainly no other substance 
could so well unite strength and suppleness, 
with the property of keeping out water. Good 
shoes are one of the most necessary articles of 
dress for health and comfort, to those who go 
much abroad ; nor has human industry in ma- 
ny cases more happily exerted itself than in 
discovering the most perfect mode of answering 
the purposes required in this manufacture. The 
great length of the process, however, has put 
many persons upon experiments to abridge it ; 
but though this may perhaps be done to 
a certain degree, yet it is probable that time, 
in this instance, as in many others, will effect 
what no substitute can do ; and that the long 
and numerous soakings are necessary thorough- 
ly to impregnate the hide with the preserva- 
tive matter, without injury to its texture. 
Leather is capable of being dyed of various 
colours besides black, by means of different 



129 

drugs. Some tanned leather is likewise dress- 
ed white, or of a tawny hue, as you see in 
leathern breeches. These variations, however, 
I do not mean to enter into. The hides prin- 
cipally used in the shoe manufacture are those 
ot neat-cattle, or the ox kind. For the more 
delicate work, the skins of the goat, dog, seal, 
and some other animals, are employed. For 
breeches-leather, deer-skin is preferred ; and 
the best tanned gloves are made with the 
same. 

There is another mode of preparing leather, 
quite different from the preceding, which is 
called tawing. It is chiefly practiced upon kid- 
skins, for the manufacture of fine gloves. The 
skin is first washed, and then soaked in lime 
water, in order to get rid of the hair and grease- 
It is then softened in warm water and bran, and 
stretched out to dry ; which renders it trans- 
parent. The preservative liquor is next appli- 
ed, which is here not a vegetable astringent, 
but a solution of alum and common salt. 

With this it is impregnated so as to admit 
of keeping in that state several months. The 
next operation is to wash out the superfluous 
salts with warm water, which must be done 
with great nicety. Afterwards it is moderately 



130 

dried, and then thrown into a tub in which yolks 
of eggs have been well mixed by beating. 
The skins are trodden in this, till all the egg is 
incorporated in their substance, which is there- 
by rendered more solid, and at the same time 
soft and pliable. Blood is sometimes, for cheap- 
ness, used instead of eggs, but it communicates a 
colour which cannot be entirely discharged. The 
skins are then dried again, when they become fit 
either for taking a dye or for being glossed, if pre- 
ferred white. The method of preparing goat- 
skins for the celebrated Morocco, resembles 
this; but the thickening matter in which the 
skins are trod is a bath of white figs w ith water. 
It would be easy to lengthen this letter by 
descriptions of other methods of preparing skins, 
as practiced in different countries with greater 
or less simplicity ; but I hope I have said enough 
to afford you clear ideas of the leading purposes 
in view, and the essential operations for effect- 
ing them. I will therefore keep you no longer on 
this manufacture, which, though curious, is not 
one of the most pleasing. 1 now, likewise, con- 
conclude the whole tropic of the art concerned 
in clothing. 



131 



LETTER XV. 

On the Arts of Providing Shelter. 

And teach us farther by what means to shun. 
Th' inclement seasons, rain, ice, hail, and snow. 

Paradise Lost, 

My Dear Boy. — It is not of great impor- 
tance to ascertain the exact order in which the 
different arts of life were introduced among 
mankind ; else it might be contended, that the 
want of shelter from the storm would be felt 
earlier than that of clothing, at least in a warm 
climate. 

A place of refuge during the darkness of 
the night, while beasts of prey were roaming 
about for food, would also immediately appear 
desirable. The example of the brute animals 
themselves, too, would soon attract the notice 
of the human savage. Few of these are unpro- 
vided with a lodging or habitation of some kind 
for nightly repose, or as a retreat from the in- 
clemencies of the weather. Some make holes 
under ground, which they have even the skill to 



132 

scoop into chambers or apartments for different 
purposes. Some occupy the natural clefts or 
caverns of rocks. Some form their dens amid 
the thickest growth of underwood in the for- 
ests. The tribe of birds are particularly remark- 
able for the art they exercise in framing their 
nests, some of which display extraordinary 
marks of contrivance. Yet insects sometimes 
exhibit a still greater degree of skill ; and the 
covered galleries of the ant, and cells of the 
bee, may vie with the most studied productions 
of human ingenuity. 

Man, thus urged by necessity and instructed 
by example, would not be long in employing 
his reason to procure himself similar advanta- 
ges. As, in a savage state, he seldom chooses 
to give himself more trouble than is absolutely 
necessary, he would first, perhaps, only share 
with the beasts their natural shelter in the 
rocks. The w^ant of tools would be an imped- 
iment to his progress ; but, if he was situated 
near a rocky bank of soft crumbling stone, he 
would soon find himself able, by the help of a 
sharp hard stone, to hollow it out into winding 
passages and chambers, beyond the reach of the 
driving storm, and capable of being secured 



13S 

from attacks. Whole nations are recorded to 
have lived in habitations of this sort; and, even 
in the midst of civilized society, the conveni- 
ence of such a mode of lodging has caused it to 
be continued. Thus the French poet, Boileu, 
in the splendid age of Louis XIV, has describ- 
ed the hamlet of which he was the lord, not 
forty miles from Paris, in lines of which the 
following are a translation : 

The village rises in theatric show, 
Whose simple sons nor lime nor plaster know; 
But in the yielding rock, with sjelf-tauglit hands, 
Each scoops the cell his humble life demarids. 

Similar habitations are now possessed by 
some of the poor in England. 

This expedient would, on many accounts 
be more eligible than that to which the natives 
of the coldest inhabited regions of the globe are 
through necessity, driven ; which is to imitate 
the animals of the country, and make a kind of 
burrow under the surface of the g-round. In 
these subterraneous apartments they are, in- 
deed, well protected from the cold, and out of 
the reach ^of the howling tempest ; but they 
can have no light but from lamps, and no con- 
venience for getting rid of the filth, which 
must accumulate during their tedious winters. 



124 

In this respect, they are less comfortable than 
their fellow-burrowers of the brute creation, 
who generally lie torpid in the winter season, 
and feel none of the necessities of nature. The 
stench and closeness of these underground huts 
are said to be absolutely intolerble to any but 
the natives, who, through habit, seem to be lit- 
tle affected by such inconveniences. 

In the warm climates, however, which were 
probably the original seat of man, amid the ex- 
uberant growth of forests, the first permanent 
shelter made by his hands would naturally be a 
kind of close arbour, formed of intertwisted 
boughs, impenetrable to the rain over head by 
its own green foilage in summer, and by dried 
grass, moss, and the like, in the winter. Mil- 
ton has given a delightful description of a bow- 
er of this sort, the supposed habitation of our 
first parents, in Paradise : — 

The roof 
Of thickest coveit was inwoven shade 
Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew 
Of firm and fragrant leaf: on either side 
Acanthus, and each od*ious bushy shrub, 
Fenc'd up the verdant wall ; each beaiilcous tlow'r, 
Iiis ; II hues, roses and jessamine, 

Rear'd high their flourish'd heads between, and wrought 
Mosaic : underfoot tho violet, 
Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay, 
Broidcr'd the ground. [Paradise Lost, brok 4.] 



135 

Such a dwelling, however, though extremely 
poetical, would be found rather too unsubstan- 
tial for domestic purposes, and art would pres- 
ently suggest improvements upon it. As soon 
as means had been discovered of cutting down 
and shaping the trunks and branches of trees, 
the artificial hut, or cabin, would, on many ac- 
counts, be preferred to the natural arbour. As 
this is, in fact, the origin of all edifices for hab- 
itation, up to the palace, I shall consider it at 
some length, in its various steps towards per- 
fection. 

The rudest structure of this kind seems to be 
that, which is still the only habitation occupied 
by some human beings, and which consists of a 
few poles set in a circular form, and meeting 
at top. Upon these are fastened leafy b anch- 
es, pieces of bark, turf, or the like, so as :o give 
some protection from the descending shower. 
An entrance is left open on that side, which is 
least exposed to the cold winds ; and to correct 
the chillness of the night-air, a fire is kindled 
on the ground facing the entrance, and the in- 
habitant takes his repose stretched within his 
cover, presenting his naked feet towards the 
grateful flame. It is impossible for shelter to 



136 

be more chiefly provided by art than by such a 
contrivance. 

The shed is a small advance beyond the pre- 
ceding in point of comfort. This supposes an 
upright back already provided, from which is 
thrown a sloping roof, resting upon a front and 
sides. Nothing can possibly be more simple 
than the ma^^mer in which that extraordinary 
race, the gipsies, construct a dwelling of this 
kind. They seek out a wide dry ditch, back- 
ed on one side with a high bank. From the 
top of this to the lower opposite side, they lay 
a row of rough poles, which they cross with 
leafy boughs, wattled in, so as to form a slop- 
ing roof, capable of keeping out and carrying 
off a shower of rain. 

One of the ends they close in with poles, 
wattled in the same manner ; the other they 
leave open for an entrance. The hollow of the 
ditch is their apartment, strewed perhaps with 
fern or withered leaves, in which they lie at 
least as snug as a hare in her form. It must 
be allowed, however, that they are not entitled 
to all the merit of this ingenuity, for the ditch 
is ready dug to their hands. When these peo- 
ple aspire to a hut or hovel, their contrivance 



137 

goes little farther. They stick in the ground 
a row of flexible poles or stakes, which they ^ 
bend round so as to make an arch. This they 
cover with an old canvas tilt like that of a car- 
rier's wagon, and, creeping under it, find their 
lodging sufficiently ample. But this, again, is 
not all their own, for they must beg or steal the 
canvas, which is the most material part of the 
fabric. Indeed, such a habitation rather par- 
takes of the nature of a tent^ which is scarcely 
to be reckoned among the proper building con- 
trivances, since almost the whole art exerted in 
it consists in the fabrication of the stuff which 
is made to serve as a shelter. 

The real hut^ or rustic house, as first made 
by the native of a woody country, must have 
been constructed of the material ready provi- 
ded to his purpose by nature, namely, timber, 
or wood. This substance possesses many ex- 
cellent qualities for the builder's use. It com- 
bines strength with lightness, toughness with 
flexibility : it is readily fashioned by the work- 
man's tool, yet has sufficient hardness to resist 
j external violence, or the decaying effects of air 
1 and moisture, at least for a considerable time. 
I The trunks of trees, presenting a kind of natu- 



138 



tsl columns, capable of supporting the vast 
weight of the branching heads, would then be 
selected for the frame of the intended fabric. 
They would be taken of such a size as the 
workman could easily manage, stript of their 
branches, pointed, and driven into the ground 
at suitable distances. Probably four main 
posts set in a square or oblong form would af- 
ford space enough for the first humble dwelling. 
These would be connected by four smaller 
trunks, or beams, laid horizontally on their tops, 
and fast bound with slips of bark, or tough 
twigs. The intervals between the posts would 
be filled up with slenderer upright poles stuck 
in the ground, and interwoven crossw ise with 
sticks or bows, so as to make a sort of wucker- 
work. And, as this could not be made quite 
close, the contrivance w^ould soon suggest itself 
of stuffing its chinks wdth moss, and daubing 
the surface over with moist clay, w^hich might 
harden in the sun. The roof would at first be 
a flat one, made by laying poles, by way of raf- 
ters, across the beams, and upon these, branch- 
es of trees, with the leaves on, with dried grass, 
reeds, or the like. In hot climates, the large 
broad leaves of the palmetto, or other similar 



139 

trees, would offer a ready covering. It would 
soon be found, however, that the water of a ve- 
ry heavy shower lodging upon a flat roof, Avould 
soak through, notwithstanding all the pains that 
could be taken. The obvious remedy for this 
would be a sloping roof, to carry off the rain as 
it fell ; and this would easily be formed by ma- 
king the hinder posts of the hut taller than the 
front ones, Avhereby the side beams, the rafters, 
and the whole roof, would take an oblique direc- 
tion from the back to the front. 

The entrance of the habitation would vary ac- 
cording to the climate, and the security requisite 
against unwelcome intruders. In a hot country, 
not infested with dangerous animals, perhaps the 
builder would leave one of the shorter sides 
quite open ; but where the cold, or the attacks 
of wild beasts were to be guarded against, he 
would leave only a small aperture, probably not 
so high as himself, which he would contrive to 
close occasionally by a strong hurdle, or a bun- 
dle of sticks. This, at first, would also be the 
only inlet for light, and outlet for the smoke of 
his fire ; but, for the latter purpose, he would 
soon find it more convenient to make a hole in 
the roof. The ascending quality of smoke, and 
"t 



140 

the advantage of providing an escape for it, 
while his door remained safe shut, would sug- 
gest this improvement. 

Huts similar to those I have been describing 
are at this day in use, not only among savage 
nations, but among the new settlers in the wilds 
of America, who are obliged to pass som.e years 
in a state little removed from that of savages, 
till by the culture of the ground they are able 
to improve their condition. Their log-house 
is an edifice of rough timber, made of trunks 
or poles of equal length laid horizontally upon 
each other, and fastened at the ends into up- 
right posts by means of notches or mortices. 
The crevices are plastered with clay mixed 
with moss or straw. The roof is made either 
of bark or split boards; the fireplace is a hol- 
bow pile of stones, above which a hole is left 
in the roof for the smoke t^ pass out. Anoth- 
er hole is made in the side tor a window , which 
is occasionally closed with a wooden shutter. 
Thus a place of shelter is procured, sufficient to 
answer every necessary purpose, though desti- 
tute of most of the comforts and conveniences 
which we are so happy as to enjoy in our hab- 
itations. In what these principally consist will 
be the subject of my next Letter. 



141 



LETTER XVI. 

Arts on Shelter^ Continued. 

In my last Letter I proceeded as far as the 
substantial log-house of an American settler ; 
but I must now go back a little to consider the 
expedients practised by the inhabitants of a 
bare and open country, who need shelter the 
more, in proportion as nature has the less pro- 
vided it in surrounding objects. The turfy 
covering of the earth or the stones encumber- 
ing its surface, are the only materials present- 
ing themselves for the erection of his humble 
hut. These he piles up so as to form four thick 
walls, the crevices of which he stops up with 
moss or clay. From the top of them he springs 
his roof, which he cannot well make without 
a few poles or beams, for rafters. His covering 
is either green sods, or twigs of heath, which 
he binds on with ropes twisted from long grass, 
and strengthens by the weight of large flat 
stones. Thus, in some snug hollow, he defies 
the wintry blast, which howls around, and rears 



142 

securely his hardy offspring. Of such habita- 
tions, in their very rudest form, you may see 
specimens in Mr Pennant's Tower to the West- 
ern Isles of Scotland. 

But, though human beings may exist with 
no better provisions for shelter than those above 
described, yet an attention to the comforts and 
conveniences of life would soon suggest a va- 
riety of improvements. Before I attempt to 
give you /», general notion of these, it will be 
proper to speak of those additional materials 
for building, which art has discovered, or has 
employed to much greater advantage than as 
they are presented by nature. 

The art of the carpenter in squaring timber? 
Dividing it into thin boards, smoothing it, fast- 
ening pieces together by mortices and dove- 
tails, and other devices for fashioning it to al 
sorts of purposes, has so much increased its use- 
fulness as a material, that numberless conven- 
iences have been produced by its means,which 
the wild inhabitant of the woods could never 
have thought of. 

For the w^alls of a building, stone obviously 
presents the strongest and most durable mate- 
rial ; but the scattered stones upon the surface 



i 



143 



of the ground are too irregular in their form to 
fit closely together, and make a solid fabric. 
Art, therefore, had recourse to the great mass- 
es of stone lying upon the earth and stretching 
beneath its surface ; and, by means of proper 
tools, cut out of them regular pieces of conven- 
ient sizes, which, when duly shaped and 
smoothed, might be applied to each other, so 
as to raise a structure perfectly firm and even. 
The best kinds of stone for the mason's use are 
those cslled freestones ; which name is given 
them from the freedom with which they yield 
to the stone-cutter's tools while in the quarry, 
although they become hard upon exposure to 
the air. The composition of these stones is 
sand and calcareous earth, bound together by 
a natural cement. Other sorts are harder and 
more durable, but the difficulty with which 
they are wrought is reckoned to overbalance 
this advantage. The practice of working quar- 
ries is of very remote origin, and the remains 
of many ancient edifices still exist, which as- 
tonish by the vast bulk of the single stones of 
which they are composed, and prove the excel- 
lence of the material. 

n 



144 

Stone also affords one of the best materials 
for the covering of buildings. The species 
principally used for this purpose is slate^ a kind 
of stone naturally disposed in layers, and which 
separates into thin broad leaves under the tool 
of the workman. Slate is of various colours 
and degrees of fineness. That which divides 
into the thinnest leaves is in general to be pre- 
ferred, since, with sufficient solidity to resist the 
weather, it makes the least addition to the 
weight to be supported by the roof. Consider- 
able skill is required in laying it on, so that the 
lower end of one slate mayjust lap over the upper 
end of another, and fit so closely as no wet can 
beat in between ; and also, that the wind may 
have as little hold of it as possible. Such a 
covering both answers the purpose very effect- 
ually, and is very durable ; and, where slates 
of a good kind are to be procured upon moder- 
ate terms, houses are seldom covered with any 
thing else. 

It is the business of art not only to employ 
the gifts of nature to the best advantage, but 
to find substitutes for them where they are 
wanting. When the comfort of a stone build- 
ing had been experienced, men set about dis- 



145 

covering some other material, which might sup- 
ply its place in countries where it could not be 
procured. It was soon found, that earths of 
the clayey kind possessed the property of be- 
coming hard in the fire ; and as, in their soft 
state, they might be moulded into any shape, 
an opportunity was plainly given of forming a 
sort of artificial stones, more easily brought tp 
the desired regularity than the naturSl ones. 
The art of brick-making was therefore one of 
the early inventions of mankind. We are in- 
formed, that it w^as prastised among the ancient 
Egyptians ; and the stupendous w^alls of Bab- 
ylon were constructed of bricks. In hot coun- 
tries, where rain seldom fell, the heat of the 
sun was thought sufficient to give the clay a 
due degree of hardness ; and to this day many 
towns and villages in the East are built with 
bricks baked in the sun, in consequence of 
which, a heavy unexpected shower will wash 
down whole houses. The substantial way has 
always been to burn them with fuel ; and this 
is done sometimes in buildings called kilns, and 
and sometimes in })iles raised in the open air, 
in which the raw^ bricks, or regular shapes of 
clay made in a mould, arc disposed so as to 



146 



leave a kind of channels for the fuel, all com- 
municating with a fire-place at the bottom of 
the pile. The heat is applied gradually, and 
is continued till the whole have acquired a hard- 
ness which ought to be equal to that of a nat- 
m^al stone. The qualities of brick are very va- 
rious, according to the nature of the clay, and 
the pains taken to burn them thoroughly. The 
pale bricks generally used in London, made of 
a mixture of clay, dirt, and coal-ashes, are some 
of the worst, and promise but a short duration 
to the edifices of the metropolis. Good brick 
is a very valuable material for building. It is 
cheaper and more handy for use than squared 
stone, and yet equally well resists the impres- 
sion of the weather, and secures from the dan- 
ger of fire. 

When baked earth had been employed for 
the walls of an edifice, it was an obvious mat- 
ter to use it also for the covering. For this 
purpose the clay is moulded into thin oblong 
pieces called tiles, some flat, others bent like a 
scroll, and sometimes glazed on the outer sur- 
face. These are laid upon the roof like slates, 
and, being regular in their shape, are capable 
of fitting very exactly to each other, and form- 



147 

ing a neat and effectual covering. They have 
the fault of being brittle, and are heavier than 
an equal surface of fine slate. 

A very important article of the artificial build- 
ing materials remains to be described, which is, 
the cement. Stones or bricks merely piled up- 
on each other would make a very loose wall, 
easily thrown down, and penetrable by the wind 
and rain. It was therefore > necessary to find 
some substance which would completely fill up 
the chinks, and then, by hardening, would bind 
all the pieces together, so as to form, as it were, 
a single solid mass of the whole wall. This 
has been done by the invention of mortar. The 
basis of the composition used for mortar is lime, 
a substance made by burning or calcining any 
of those earths which are called calcareous, or 
lime-stones. Of these it is the essential prop- 
erty to dissolve in acids. If, then, you were 
in an unknown country, and provided with a 
bottle of nitrous or muriatic acid (called aqua- 
fortis, and spirit of salt,) you might discover 
whether any stone or earth was fitted for mak- 
ing lime, by observing whether it effervesced 
strongly on pouring one of these acids upon it. 
The calcareous earths most commonly met 



148 



with are chalk, sea-shells, marble and lime- 
stones of various colour and hardness, often 
composing whole rocks and quarries. Of these, 
the hardest in their natural state generally yield 
the strongest lime when burned. The process 
of burning is carried on in a kiln of a sort of 
conical form, with a fire-place at the bottom, 
and open at top. The calcareous earth, brok- 
en into pieces, is laid in layers alternately with 
the fuel, and a very strong fire kept up during 
several hours. At the end, the earth is found 
to be converted into lime, which is efFected*by 
the dissipation of the water it contained, and 
also of a kind of air or gas, which the chemists 
have named carbonic acid. It is now of an ac- 
rid and caustic nature, and imbibes water with 
great rapidity, heating with it, and falling into 
fine powder. By the addition of water it is 
said to be slaked^ in which state it remains cool, 
but is still deprived of its carbonic acid, which 
it does not recover till after a long exposure to 
the air. It is this fresh-slaked lime, mixed in- 
to a paste with sand and water, which forms 
mortar. The best sand for the purpose is the 
sharpest and coarsest ; and the ingredients can- 
not be too thoroughly mixed. Good mortar 



149 



will in time become as hard as stone itself; 
nay, in some very old buildings, the mortar has 
held a wall together after the stones or bricks 
were almost crumbled away. The manner of 
using mortar in building is to imbed every sin- 
gle stone or brick in a layer of it, by spreading 
it with a trowel over the surface of the under 
ones, and between the sides of the contiguous 
ones, as the work advances. It hardens in pro- 
portion as its moisture evaporates, and as the 
lime in it recovers its gas from the air. 

Mortar is, however, employed not merely as 
a cement, but as a coating or covering to other 
materials. Thus, it is often spread on the out- 
side or inside of walls, and upon the surface of 
ceilings. A mode of building very common, 
and still in use, is to make a frame-work of tim- 
ber with upright and cross beams, and to fill up 
the intervals with thin slips of wood called laths, 
which are thin coated with mortar. When 
used for this purpose, it is mixed with chopt 
hair to make it adhere the better, and is called 
plaster. Such buildings are cheap, and neat 
to the eye, but are defective in warmth and du- 
rability. 



150 

As it is the quality of mortar to harden in 
tmie to a kmd of stone, it was an obvious 
thought to try how walls could be built of it 
alone. It seems as if this method had been 
occasionally practised by the ancients in con- 
structing the high and massy walls of defence 
with which fortified towns were surrounded. 
At the present day there are parts of England 
in which small houses are very solidly formed., 
of this material. The method is to mix a quan- 
tity of quicklime, smaller than that employed 
for common mortar, and with a little water ; 
and then, having prepared a wooden case of the 
length and thickness of the proposed wall, to 
ram in this mixture very hard to the height of 
a few feet, and suffer it to stand in that state 
till quite firm and dry. The case is then lift- 
ed higher, and the same operation is repeated 
with fresh materials, till the wall is raised to 
the intended height. This is not only a very 
substantial mode of building, but capable of be- 
ing made to look very neat by polishing. So 
much for brick and mortar. 



151 



LETTER XVII. 
Arts af Shelter J Continued. 

My Dear Boy. — Having now made a suf- 
ficient provision of materials for any improve- 
ment in building that human art may suggest, 
I shall conclude my subject by a slight sketch 
of those successive steps in contrivance, which 
have advanced the simple hut or cottage to the 
comfortable dwelling house, suited to the oc- 
casions of civilized life. 

The utility of dividing the space enclosed 
within the walls into severail apartments appro- 
priated to different uses, would very soon be- 
come apparent. Of this degree of contrivance 
several quadrupeds have given an example, 
who, in their subterraneous habitations, form 
distinct chambers for lodging in, and for repos- 
itories of their various stores of provisions. By 
means, therefore, of inside walls or partitions of 
boards, men would separate their sleeping- 
room, their cooking-room or kitchen, their 
store-room, and the like ; and these they would 



152 

fit up differently, makino; the bed-chamber warm 
and snug, perhaps with matting hung round it ; 
the kitchen well protected from the danger of 
fire ; and leaving the store room in a rough 
unfinished state. They would also soon dis- 
cover the advantage of raising a floor to some 
height above the adjacent ground, and harden- 
ing it, either with beaten clay, or a pavement 
of stones or boards. 

The great evil of a smoky house would soon 
put the inhabitant upon devising some better 
method of carrying off the smoke than through 
a mere hole in his roof. He would remove his 
fire-place from the middle of the room to one 
of the outside walls ; and, having enclos- 
ed it at the sides with stone or brick ; he 
would continue the structure up to the top of 
the house, forming it at a certain distance from 
the ground into a sort of tube or funnel, through 
which the smoke might be conveyed away 
clear from the building. Thus he would have 
an open fire-place below, for warming himself 
and cooking, terminating in a chimney above. 
This excellent invention, which contributes 
more than almost any other circumstance to 
the comfort of a house, would probably cost 



i 



153 



many trials before it was brought to periection. 
There is reason, indeed, to believe, that the an- 
cients even after they had acquired great skill 
in most parts of architecture, were little ac- 
quainted with the construction of chimnies, 
which would be most studied in the colder cli- 
mates. In some of these, the stove is prefered 
to the open fire, for warming rooms. This con- 
sists of a kind of oven, heated from the outside, 
and projecting into a room, to which it com- 
municates warmth through its body. 

The admission of air and light would soon, 
even in the hut, be effected rather by apertures 
in the walls, than by the open door. These 
would be provided with shatters to close occa- 
sionally against the wind and rain, and during 
the night. But it might long exercise the in- 
vention how to contrive a method of lighting 
an apartment, while, at the same time, it was^ 
sheltered from the inclemencies of the weather. 
Some semi-transparent substance stretched over 
the window-frame would be thought of for this 
purpose ; and we find, that in different coun- 
tries, thin cloth, oiled paper, the fine membrane 
of the intestines of fishes, and other similar 
10 



154 

things, have been made use of. A kind of 
transparent stone, called talc^ which divides in 
thin leaves, would be a still better material ; 
but the difficulty of procuring it in large pieces, 
even in the few countries where it is found, 
would make its use in windows a great rarity. 
The manufacture of glass had been long inven- 
ted before a method was discovered of forming 
it into flat plates. This discovery, however, 
could not fail of soon suggesting its employment 
for the purpose in question ; and it is surprising 
to reflect how much pleasure and convenience 
was at once added to men's habitations by the 
adoption of glass windows. The solidity of 
glass renders it perfectly efficacious in exclu- 
ding the fiercest shower or keenest wind ; 
while its complete transparency allows the rays^ 
of light to pass with scarcely any obstruction.. 
It was possible, therefore, by its means, to- 
make the house at the same time lightsome and 
warm. The apertures for windows were ini 
consequence enlarged, and brought down to ai 
level with the eye ; and all the advantages ofl 
shelter.were enjoyed, while the sight was grat- 
ified with the beauties of a fine country or a 
delicious garden. 



155 

As houses were enlarged in compass, it 
would be found necessary to give a new con- 
struction to the roof. Instead of a single slope, 
which would become too weak on account of 
the length of the rafters, a ridged or angular 
roof falling each way from the centre would be 
adopted. In making this, the front and back walls 
of the building being raised of equal height, a 
frame of rafters is sprung from the top of each, 
meeting a beam in the middle, to which they 
are strongly fastened. Other pieces of wood 
are nailed across, and thus a firm support is 
afforded to the material composing the cover- 
ing of the house, while a rapid fall ^towards 
each side procures a ready drainage to the 
water. 

It would soon be considered, that the same 
roof being capable equally of covering buildings 
of any height, the readiest way of enlarging 
the habitable room in a house, would be to 
raise its walls so as to form one story above 
another. The art of making floors, by letting 
timbers into the walls for their support, would 
then be discovered ; as likewise the mode of 
communication by staircases. Another enlarge- 



156 

ment would be procured downwards by dig 
ging cellars, which would serve excellently foi 
repositories of things requiring to be kept cool 
in summer and temperate in winter, as well as 
for stowing articles of cumbersome bulk. 

In order to keep the house dry, and convey 
away what was offensive, drains, running un- 
der ground, and communicating with some 
main channel, would be found expedient. 
These conveniences were thought of so early, 
that in the very infancy of the city of Rome its 
drains or sewers were a work of vast labour 
and contrivance, and excited the admiration of 
posterity. The disagreeable dripping from the 
eaves of the roof in wet weather, would sug- 
gest the contrivance of troughs and spouts car- 
ry off the rain water, and either deposit in res- 
ervoirs, or convey it to the drains. 

Out-buildings adjoining the dwelling, for 
washing, baking, and other household purposes, 
and for the lodging of domestic animals, would 
be found very convenient, and would be erect- 
ed wherever the space permitted. With these 
would be connected a paved and enclosed yard, 
fnrnished with a supply of fresh water, by 



137 



means of a well, or a pump, when that machine 
was invented. Thus every opportunity would 
be given to promote cleanliness of the person 
and abode ; which is certainly one of the prin- 
cipal comforts of civilized life, and one of its 
chief distinctions from the savage. 

The preceding enumeration of successive 
improvements in the building art, which is 
drawn from reality, affords a pleasing instance 
of the progress of human skill in the exertion 
of the powers kindly bestowed upon man for 
bettering his situation. Every encouragement, 
indeed, has been given to the exercise of indus- 
try^ that great principle, which the poet Thom- 
son has so well represented as the author of all 
that makes existence desirable. Industry 



-pointed out 



Where lavish Nature the directing hand 
Of Art demanded ; show'd him how to raise 
His feeble force by the machanic powers, 
To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth. 
On what to turn the piercing rage of fire, 
On what the torrent and the gather'd blast; 
Gave the tall ancient forest to his axe : 
Taught him to chip the wood and hew the stone, 
Till by degrees the finish'd fabric rose. 

Thomson's Jiutumn. 



168 

Having now provided you with wholesome 
food, warm clothing, and a good house over 
your head, I think I may decently take my 
leave ; so, my dear boy, farewell, and make 
the best use of the humble but well-meant in- 
structions of your truly affectionate friend. 




